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No human being will ever know the truth, for even if they happen to say it by chance, they would not even know they had done so.

Xenophanes

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Xenophanes
Elegist
Epigrammatist
Philosopher
Poet
Xenophanes of Colophon
Truth
Ever
Human
Humans
Done
Honesty
Even
Happen
Would
Chance
Happens

More quotes by Xenophanes

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All things that come into being and grow are earth and water.
Xenophanes
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No man knows distinctly anything, and no man ever will.
Xenophanes
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God is one, greatest of gods and men, not like mortals in body or thought.
Xenophanes
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All men begin their learning with Homer.
Xenophanes
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This upper limit, of earth at our feet is visible and touches the air, but below it reaches to infinity
Xenophanes
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For we are all sprung from earth and water
Xenophanes
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If God had not made brown honey, men would think figs much sweeter than they do.
Xenophanes
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But without effort [God] sets in motion all things by mind and thought.
Xenophanes
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The sun comes into being each day from little pieces of fire that are collected.
Xenophanes
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If oxen and horses and lions could draw and paint, they would delineate the gods in their own image.
Xenophanes
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Ethiopians imagine their gods as black and snub-nosed Thracians blue-eyed and red-haired. But if horses or lions had hands, or could draw and fashion works as men do, horses would draw the gods shaped like horses and lions like lions, making the gods resemble themselves.
Xenophanes
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Pure truth no man has seen, nor ever shall know.
Xenophanes
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God is one, supreme among gods and men, and not like mortals in body or in mind.The whole [of god] sees, the whole perceives, the whole hears. But without effort he sets in motion all things by mind and thought.
Xenophanes
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Men always makes gods in their own image.
Xenophanes
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If oxen and lions had hands and could paint with their hands and produce works of art, as men do, horses would paint the forms of the gods likes horses and oxen like oxen. Each would represent them with bodies according to the bodies of each. So the Ethiopians make their gods black and snub-nosed the Thracians give theirs red hair and blue eyes.
Xenophanes
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In the beginning the gods did not at all reveal all things clearly to mortals, but by searching men in the course of time find them out better.
Xenophanes
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For all things come from earth, and all things end by becoming earth.
Xenophanes
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Homer and Hesiod attributed to the gods all things which are disreputable and worthy of blame when done by men and they told of them many lawless deeds, stealing, adultery, and deception of each other.
Xenophanes
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If cows and horses had hands and could draw, cows would draw gods that look like cows and horses would draw gods that look like horses.
Xenophanes
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The sea is the source of water and the source of wind for neither would blasts of wind arise in the clouds and blow out from within them, except for the great sea, nor would the streams of rivers nor the rain-water in the sky exist but for the sea but the great sea is the begetter of clouds and winds and rivers.
Xenophanes