"Pythagorean" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... injunction to live in a garret, which I have found frequently visited by the echo and the wind. Nor was the tradition wholly obliterated in the age of Augustus, for Tibullus evidently congratulates himself upon his garret, not without some allusion to the Pythagorean precept: ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... Rare—are experimental and of | limited value. Historians of the philosophy | of science have little trouble in disposing | these early experimentalist efforts of Bacon. | | His work on sound was somewhat better— | experimental-theoretical. It is a | post-pythagorean theory of harmonics and | still not appropriately analyzed. | Contemproary musicologists like to quote | the passages on sound in NEW ATLANTIS | for being compatible with todays approach | to music. | | By the time of the Novum Organum Bacon | was seeking a more "general theory of | science." ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon
... (resolution) 604. frugality; vegetarianism, teetotalism, total abstinence; abstinence, abstemiousness; Encratism[obs3], prohibition; system of Pythagoras, system of Cornaro; Pythagorism, Stoicism. vegetarian; Pythagorean, gymnosophist[obs3]. teetotaler &c. 958; abstainer; designated driver; Encratite[obs3], fruitarian[obs3], hydropot|!. V. be temperate &c. adj.; abstain, forbear, refrain, deny oneself, spare ,swear off. know when one has had enough, know one's limit. take the pledge, go on the wagon. Adj. temperate, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... about 394 B.C., if we may trust the statement of Aristoxenus about the military service of Plato at Corinth, he was again at Athens. He afterward went to Italy and Sicily, seeking the society of the Pythagorean philosophers, Archytas, Echecrates, Timaeus, etc., at Tarentum and Locri, and visiting the volcanic manifestations of Aetna. It appears that his first visit to Sicily was made when he was about forty years of age, which would be 387 B.C. Here he made acquaintance with the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... a Pythagorean philosopher, who, having become acquainted with some sort of Brahminism, professed to have a divine mission, and, it is said, a power to work miracles; was worshipped after his death, and has been ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... belonging to itself. It has been termed a mystical number. "Five," says Pythagoras, "has peculiar force in expiations. It is everything. It stops the power of poisons and is redoubted by evil spirits." According to the Pythagorean school of philosophy, the world is a piece of harmony and man the full chord. The major chord consists of a fundamental or tonic, its major third and its just fifth. The eighth note, or complement of ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... Socratic, that is, more of a philosopher in the Socratic mode of reasoning (Cicero calls the Platonic writings generally, Socratici libri); and Mr. C. also says, that in the metaphysical disquisitions Plato is Pythagorean, meaning, that he worked on the supposed ideal or transcendental principles of the extraordinary founder of ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... [138] "The false Pythagorean doctrine, absolutely opposed to the Holy Scriptures, concerning the mobility of the earth and the immobility ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... and subject, having a beauty 'as of a statue,' while the companion Dialogue of the Phaedrus is marked by a sort of Gothic irregularity. More too than in any other of his Dialogues, Plato is emancipated from former philosophies. The genius of Greek art seems to triumph over the traditions of Pythagorean, Eleatic, or Megarian systems, and 'the old quarrel of poetry and philosophy' has at least ...
— Symposium • Plato
... as a translator of Herodotus (M. Archer of the Academy of Inscriptions) justly observes in note 389 of the second book; where he says also that the immortality of the soul was not introduced among the Hebrews till their intercourse with the Assyrians. In other respects, the whole Pythagorean system, properly analysed, appears to be merely a system of ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... of his black breeches, like the cut and the white or shiny line of the creases, assigned the date of the purchase some three years back. The roomy garments failed to disguise the lean proportions of the wearer, due apparently rather to constitution than to a Pythagorean regimen, for the worthy man was endowed with thick lips and a sensual mouth; and when he smiled, displayed a set of white teeth which would have done ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... Greek translation of Fontenelle's Entretiens sur la Pluralite des Mondes. John Camarases, a Constantinopolitan, translated into French the apocryphal treatise, De Universi Natura, attributed to Ocellus Lucanus, a Pythagorean philosopher, who is said to have flourished in Lucania in the fifth ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... 484. His family were rich, and having large commercial transactions they were able to encourage the taste for explorations which he showed. At this time there were many different opinions as to the shape of the earth: the Pythagorean school having even then begun to teach that it must be round, but Herodotus took no part in this discussion, which was of the deepest interest to learned men of that time, and, still young, he left home with a view of exploring with great care all the then known world, and especially those ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... to the great lily growing in the Himalayan lake, Karl had mentioned from time to time to his companions: for he knew that the Nelumbium speciosum was the celebrated Pythagorean bean mentioned in the writings of the Greeks—more especially by Herodotus ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... was impressed by the Pythagorean philosophy, and very often quotes it in his speeches. Socrates gave Pythagoras as an authority on the simple life, and stated that he was willing to follow him in anything save his injunction to keep silence. Socrates ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... not to be supposed that the idea of thus explaining some of the phenomena of the heavens, especially the daily motion of the entire firmament, by a diurnal rotation of the earth had not struck any one. It was often at this time referred to as the Pythagorean theory, and it had been taught, I believe, by Aristarchus. But it was new to the modern world, and it had the great weight of Aristotle against it. Consequently, for long after Copernicus, only a few leading spirits could be found to support it, and ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... Cf. Herodot. I. 91, quoted by Blomfield: [Greek: ten pepromenen moiren adynata esti apophygeein kai to theo]. On this Pythagorean notion of ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus
... then, you are so lean, and hence comes this long moustache, and these love-locks all adust. Just such a figure was a Pythagorean that came here of late, barefoot and wan,— and said he was an Athenian. Marry, he too was in love, methinks, with a plate ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... relic of antiquity, a Pythagorean. He has obliged me with his biography. He was, to use his own words, engendered by the sun shining on a dunghill at his father's door,' and began his career as a flea; but his identity was, somehow, shifted to a boy of nine years old. He has had a long spell ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... mere results: you want to know and to understand the method by which they have been obtained. You want to follow step by step that glorious progress of discovery which has led us to where we stand now. What is the use of knowing the Pythagorean problem, if we cannot prove it? What would be the use of knowing that the French larme is the same as the German Zhre (tear), if we could not with mathematical exactness trace every step by which these two words have diverged till ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... fathers of the Church, influenced possibly by Pythagorean traditions, but certainly by Aristotle and Plato, were willing to accept this view, but the majority of them took fright at once. To them it seemed fraught with dangers to Scripture, by which, of course, they meant their interpretation ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... {6} Timaeus, the Pythagorean philosopher of Locri, and the Athenian Critias are represented by Plato as having listened to the discourse of Socrates on a Republic. Socrates calls on them to show such a state in action. Critias will tell of the rescue of Europe by the ancient citizens of Attica, 10,000 years before, ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... in each who obey the commands of Christ, and I will show you five hundred in this very city who observe the dictates of Pythagoras. Every Pythagorean obeys his defunct philosopher; and almost every Christian disobeys his living God. Where is there one who practises the most important and the easiest of His commands, to abstain from strife? Men easily and perpetually find something new to quarrel about; but the objects ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... not sever himself from this obnoxious tradition.[5] It is true that neither the Pythagorean nor the Egypto-Tychonic system required epicycles for explaining retrograde motion, as the Ptolemaic theory did. Furthermore, either system could use the excentric of Hipparchus to explain the irregular motion known as the equation of the centre. But Copernicus remarked that ...
— History of Astronomy • George Forbes
... have issued from you in divers times? Among whom—not to name all of them—there has been in our days Leopardo de l'Osso of happy memory, physician and most excellent philosopher, singular in every science, of whom I dare say that he attained to Pythagorean heights. How many are there to-day, versed in every faculty, in theology, in the two laws, and in medicine? How many historians, how many poets, grammarians, ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... Pythagorean philosophy was well-suited for the purpose of mingling its doctrines with the fabulous narratives of the Poet, as it consisted, in great part, of the doctrine of an endless series of transformations. Its main features may be reduced to two general heads; the first of which ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... thought have at all times been distinguished for their age. Among the venerable sages are Appolonius of Tyana, a follower of Pythagoras, who lived to over one hundred; Xenophilus, also a Pythagorean, was one hundred and six; Demonax, a Stoic, lived past one hundred; Isocrates was ninety-eight, and Solon, Sophocles, Pindar, Anacreon, ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... the mercenary spirit of the Peripatetic, the inquirer next determined to make a trial of Pythagorean philosophy. But the celebrated Pythagorean teacher whom he consulted wished him to learn music, astronomy, and geometry. Those kinds of knowledge, however, were not what Justin wanted, and besides he thought ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... fundamental doctrine of the Pythagorean philosophy was that the essence of all things rests upon musical relations, that numbers are the principle of all that exists, and that the world subsists by the rhythmical order of its elements. ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... little rules are interesting. The Pythagorean abstinence from m[a][s.][a]s, beans, for instance, is enjoined; though this rule is opposed by Barku V[a]rshna, Cat. Br. i. 1. 1. 10, on the ground that no offering to the gods is made of beans; "hence he ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... clairvoyance of the seeress of Prevorst, while the experiences of Emanuel Swedenborg have been set forth in many biographies, but in none more lucidly and dispassionately than that by William White. Traditions have come to us concerning the clairvoyance of the Greek exponent of the Pythagorean teachings, Apollonius of Tyana, and the case of Cavotte, who predicted his own death and that of Robespierre and others by the guillotine, is on record. The illumination of Andrew Jackson Davis, the Poughkeepsie seer, ...
— Second Sight - A study of Natural and Induced Clairvoyance • Sepharial
... the molecules into activity. This is the "Word" which St. John says was in the beginning (the plane of causation); in another sense it is the Akasa of occult science, the element of sound, it is the Pythagorean "music of the spheres." The universe is built up, moulded and sustained by this element which is everywhere present, though inaudible by most men at this stage of evolution. It is not sound by the physical ears, but deep in the heart sometimes may be heard "the mystic sounds of the ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... thus leads you, not only to the study of the Pythagorean philosophy as to numbers, but also to the Kabalah, and will aid you in discovering the True Word, and understanding what was meant by "The Music of the Spheres." Modern science strikingly confirms the ideas of Pythagoras in regard to the ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... indwelling in me, had driven from the chamber of my soul all lust of earthly success, and with thine eye ever upon me, there could be no place left for sacrilege. For thou didst daily repeat in my ear and instil into my mind the Pythagorean maxim, "Follow after God." It was not likely, then, that I should covet the assistance of the vilest spirits, when thou wert moulding me to such an excellence as should conform me to the likeness of God. ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius
... Greek, it has been well said, implies the birth of criticism, comparison and research. At the opening of that education of modern by ancient thought which we call the Renaissance, it was the words of Aristotle which sent Columbus sailing to the New World, while a fragment of Pythagorean astronomy set Copernicus thinking on that train of reasoning which has revolutionised the whole position of our planet in the universe. Then it was seen that the only meaning of progress is a return to Greek modes of ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... sensible phenomena—relations of time, of place, of number, of proportion, and of harmony; others are relations of phenomena to essential being—relations of qualities to substance, of becoming to being, of the finite to the infinite. The former constituted the field of Pythagorean the latter of Eleatic contemplation. The Pythagoreans sought to explain the universe by numbers, forms, and harmonies; the Eleatics by the a priori ideas of unity, substance, Being in se, the Infinite. Thus were constituted a Mathematical and a Metaphysical sect in the Italian school. ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... are not to be obtained, without some labor and pains, against contrary habits. It was a wild bounce of a Pythagorean, who defied any one to produce an instance of a person, who had long lived on milk and vegetables, who ever cut his own throat, hanged, or made way with himself; who had ever suffered at Tyburn, gone to Newgate, or to ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... previous proposition, went back to that, and so on to the beginning. A new world of thought seemed to be opened. That principles so profound should be reached by methods so simple was astonishing. I was so enraptured that I explained to my brother Thomas while walking out of doors one day how the Pythagorean proposition, as it is now called, could be proved from first principles, drawing the necessary diagrams with a pencil on a piece of wood. I thought that even cattle might understand geometry could they only be communicated with and made ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... the highest idea—gaze down on the profoundest emotion—and you will know and feel in a moment that it is not a new birth. You become a devout believer in the Pythagorean and Platonic doctrine of metempsychosis and reminiscence, and are awed by the mysterious consciousness of the thought "BEFORE!" Try then to fix its date, and back travels your soul, now groping its way in utter darkness, and now in darkness visible—now launching ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... full grown, was a strong, coarse dog; coarse in shape, in countenance, in hair, and in manner. I used to think that, according to the Pythagorean doctrine, he must have been, or been going to be a Gilmerton carter. He was of the bull-terrier variety, coarsened through much mongrelism and a dubious and varied ancestry. His teeth were good, and he had a large skull, and a rich bark as of a dog three times his size, and a tail ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... of Providence here introduced, as the most proper to calm and satisfy the mind when under the compunction of private evils, seems to have come originally from the Pythagorean school: but of the ancient philosophers, Plato has most largely insisted upon it, has established it with all the strength of his capacious understanding, and ennobled it with all the magnificence of his divine imagination. He ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside |
