“To a wise man, the whole earth is open; for the native land of a good soul is the whole earth.”

—  Democritus

Freeman (1948), p. 166
Durant (1939), Ch. XVI, §II, p. 352 (footnote); citing F. Uberweg, History of Philosophy, New York, 1871, vol. 1, p. 71.
Variant: To a wise and good man the whole earth is his fatherland.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "To a wise man, the whole earth is open; for the native land of a good soul is the whole earth." by Democritus?
Democritus photo
Democritus 81
Ancient Greek philosopher, pupil of Leucippus, founder of t…

Related quotes

Robert Browning photo

“He gathers earth's whole good into his arms;
Standing, as man now, stately, strong and wise,
Marching to fortune, not surprised by her.”

Valence of Prince Berthold, in Act IV.
Colombe's Birthday (1844)
Context: p>He gathers earth's whole good into his arms;
Standing, as man now, stately, strong and wise,
Marching to fortune, not surprised by her.
One great aim, like a guiding-star, above—
Which tasks strength, wisdom, stateliness, to lift
His manhood to the height that takes the prize;
A prize not near — lest overlooking earth
He rashly spring to seize it — nor remote,
So that he rest upon his path content:
But day by day, while shimmering grows shine,
And the faint circlet prophesies the orb,
He sees so much as, just evolving these,
The stateliness, the wisdom and the strength,
To due completion, will suffice this life,
And lead him at his grandest to the grave.
After this star, out of a night he springs;
A beggar's cradle for the throne of thrones
He quits; so, mounting, feels each step he mounts,
Nor, as from each to each exultingly
He passes, overleaps one grade of joy.
This, for his own good: — with the world, each gift
Of God and man, — reality, tradition,
Fancy and fact — so well environ him,
That as a mystic panoply they serve —
Of force, untenanted, to awe mankind,
And work his purpose out with half the world,
While he, their master, dexterously slipt
From such encumbrance, is meantime employed
With his own prowess on the other half.
Thus shall he prosper, every day's success
Adding, to what is he, a solid strength —
An aery might to what encircles him,
Till at the last, so life's routine lends help,
That as the Emperor only breathes and moves,
His shadow shall be watched, his step or stalk
Become a comfort or a portent, how
He trails his ermine take significance, —
Till even his power shall cease to be most power,
And men shall dread his weakness more, nor dare
Peril their earth its bravest, first and best,
Its typified invincibility.Thus shall he go on, greatening, till he ends—
The man of men, the spirit of all flesh,
The fiery centre of an earthly world!</p

“To the wise man every land is eligible as a place of residence; for the whole world is the country of the worthy soul.”

Stobaeus Ancient Greek anthologist

42
Pythagorean Ethical Sentences

Pericles photo

“The whole Earth is the Sepulchre of famous men; and their story is not graven only on Stone over their native earth, but lives on far away, without visible symbol, woven into the stuff of other men's lives.”

Pericles (-494–-429 BC) Greek statesman, orator, and general of Athens

As quoted in A Brief and True Report concerning Williamsburg in Virginia by Rutherford Goodwin (1941), p. 125

Henry David Thoreau photo

“This whole earth in which we inhabit is but a point is space.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist
Bahá'u'lláh photo

“Thus the whole earth will come to be regarded as one country.”

Bahá'u'lláh (1817–1892) founder of the Bahá'í Faith

Tablets of Bahá'u'lláh http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/b/TB/index.html <!-- p. 22 -->
Context: It behoveth the sovereigns of the world may God assist them or the ministers of the earth to take counsel together and to adopt one of the existing languages or a new one to be taught to children in schools throughout the world, and likewise one script. Thus the whole earth will come to be regarded as one country.

Marilyn Ferguson photo

“Today there are millions of residents of that "great country, the whole earth."”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

In their hearts and minds, war and boundaries and dogma have indeed already died. And they possess that large hope of which Hugo wrote. They know each other as countrymen. The Whole Earth is a borderless country, a paradigm of humanity with room enough for outsiders and traditionalists, for all our ways of human knowing, for all mysteries and all cultures. p. 405
The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Thirteen, The Whole- Earth Conspiracy

Mahavatar Babaji photo
Walt Whitman photo

“I say the whole earth and all the stars in the sky are for religion’s sake.”

Starting from Paumanok. 7
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Emma Goldman photo

“The indvidual whose vision encompasses the whole world feels nowhere so hedged in as and out of touch with his surroundings as in his native land.”

Emma Goldman (1868–1940) anarchist known for her political activism, writing, and speeches

As quoted in [Robert Andrews, The New Penguin Dictionary of Modern Quotations, https://books.google.com/books?id=VK0vR4fsaigC&pg=PT657, 30 October 2003, Penguin Books Limited, 978-0-14-196531-4, 657]
The Individual, Society and the State (1940)

Victor Hugo photo

“In the twentieth century war will be dead, the scaffold will be dead, animosity will be dead, royalty will be dead, and dogmas will be dead; but Man will live. For all there will be but one country—that country the whole earth; for all there will be but one hope—that hope the whole heaven.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

Context: For four hundred years the human race has not made a step but what has left its plain vestige behind. We enter now upon great centuries. The sixteenth century will be known as the age of painters, the seventeenth will be termed the age of writers, the eighteenth the age of philosophers, the nineteenth the age of apostles and prophets. To satisfy the nineteenth century, it is necessary to be the painter of the sixteenth, the writer of the seventeenth, the philosopher of the eighteenth; and it is also necessary, like Louis Blane, to have the innate and holy love of humanity which constitutes an apostolate, and opens up a prophetic vista into the future. In the twentieth century war will be dead, the scaffold will be dead, animosity will be dead, royalty will be dead, and dogmas will be dead; but Man will live. For all there will be but one country—that country the whole earth; for all there will be but one hope—that hope the whole heaven.

Address to the Workman's Congress at Marseille http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Victor_Hugo%27s_Address_to_the_Workman%27s_Congress_at_Marseille (1879)

Related topics