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...for our wisdom is better than the strength of men or of horses. ... nor is it right to prefer strength to excellent wisdom. For if there should be in the city [any athlete whose skill] is honoured more than strength ... the city would not on that account be any better governed.

Xenophanes

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Xenophanes
Elegist
Epigrammatist
Philosopher
Poet
Xenophanes of Colophon
Prefer
Strength
Excellent
Cities
Athlete
Wisdom
Accounts
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Science
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More quotes by 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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If horses had Gods, they would look like horses.
Xenophanes
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Even if a man should chance to speak the most complete truth, yet he himself does not know it all things are wrapped in appearances
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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For all things come from earth, and all things end by becoming earth.
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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For we are all sprung from earth and water
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
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All things that come into being and grow are earth and water.
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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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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The sun comes into being each day from little pieces of fire that are collected.
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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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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But without effort [God] sets in motion all things by mind and thought.
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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If God had not made brown honey, men would think figs much sweeter than they do.
Xenophanes