Empedocles of Agrigento (495 B.C. – 444 B.C.) was an outstanding Greek philosopher and politician.

In Ancient Greece, Empedocles played an important role in the development of rationalist philosophy. Heavily influenced by the ideas of Parmenides, it believed in the immutability of the existing. He was an exceptional speaker and a renowned physician. He founded the Sicilian school of medicine, being considered as one of the most intrepid and prolific researchers of his time.

  • “Aristotle’s 100 Best Sentences”
  • “The 23 best famous phrases of Plutarch”

Famous phrases from Empedocles

There’s usually a consensus that the cause of death was provoked. Empedocles committed suicide. The only works on record are two poems, called “On the Nature of Beings” and “The Purifications”.

In this article we will discover this Greek thinker. Through the 12 best phrases of Empedocles we will travel in time to know the ideas of this exceptional thinker and man of science.

1. It is impossible for something to become what it absolutely is.

About the essence of things.

2. Blessed is he who has acquired a wealth of divine wisdom, but miserable is he of whom there rests a tenuous opinion concerning the gods.

A great line about divine wisdom.

3. The sea is the sweat of the earth.

Excellent metaphor of great poetic significance.

4. These elements never cease to change place continually; now they are all united by love in one, now each one is set apart by the hatred engendered in strife, until they are brought together in the unity of the whole and are conformed to it.

A sample of his philosophical monism.

5. Happy is the one who has won the great amount of divine thoughts, woe to the one whose beliefs about the gods are dark!

A theistic thought of the great Empedocles.

6. The nature of God is a circle whose center is everywhere and the circumference is nowhere.

One of those phrases from Empedocles in which he describes his vision of the Superior Being.

7. What’s right might even be said twice.

About the truth and its discursiveness.

8. The useful words should be repeated.

Very much in line with the previous sentence.

9. No mortal thing has a beginning or end in death or destruction; there is only a blending and separation of the mixed, but by mortal men these processes are called “beginnings.

In this sentence he shows us his position on the immutability of matter.

10. The force that unites all elements to be all things is love, also called Aphrodite. Love unites different elements into a unity, to become a composite thing. Love is the same force that human beings find in work, every time they feel joy, love and peace. Struggle, on the other hand, is the force responsible for dissolution.

A famous quote from Empedocles that leads us to reflect deeply.

11. We see the earth for the earth, water for water, divine air for air, and destructive fire for fire. We understand love for love and hate for hate.

About the self.

12. I have already been, before, boy and girl, bush, bird and fish inhabitant of the sea.

Another phrase from Parmenides that tells us about monism.