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If cattle and horses, or lions, had hands...

Xenophanes

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Xenophanes
Elegist
Epigrammatist
Philosopher
Poet
Xenophanes of Colophon
Cattle
Horses
Lions
Horse
Hands

More quotes by Xenophanes

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All men begin their learning with Homer.
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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If oxen and horses and lions could draw and paint, they would delineate the gods in their own image.
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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Men always makes gods in their own image.
Xenophanes
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The clear and perfect truth no man has seen, nor will there be anyone who knows about the gods and what I say about all things... for, however perfect what he says may be, yet he does not know it all things are matters of opinion.
Xenophanes
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It takes a wise man to recognize a wise man.
Xenophanes
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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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If horses had Gods, they would look like horses.
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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For all things come from earth, and all things end by becoming earth.
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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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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The sun comes into being each day from little pieces of fire that are collected.
Xenophanes
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Pure truth no man has seen, nor ever shall know.
Xenophanes
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But without effort [God] sets in motion all things by mind and thought.
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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The Ethiopians say that their gods are snub-nosed and black the Thracians that theirs have light blue eyes and red hair.
Xenophanes
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For we are all sprung from earth and water
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