“There are men and gods, and beings like Pythagoras.”

— Pythagoras

Of himself, as quoted in A History of Western Philosophy (1945) by Bertrand Russell

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Pythagoras121

ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher -585–-495 BC

Stobaeus Ancient Greek anthologist

44
Pythagorean Ethical Sentences

“Happy are they that go to bed with grave music like Pythagoras.”

Thomas Browne (1605–1682) English polymath

On Dreams

“If all things in this universe exist, it is because they participate in the Being of God, if there are some things with life, it is because they are reflections of the life of God; if there are beings endowed with intellect and will — like men and angels — it's because they are a participation of the Sovereign Intellect which is God.”

Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter

Religion Without God (1928). p. 90

“Men are very much to be pitied in that they are to be governed by a king who is but a man like them; for it would require Gods to reform men. But kings are not less to be pitied, since being but men, that are weak and imperfect, they are to govern this innumerable multitude of corrupt and deceitful men.”

François Fénelon (1651–1715) Catholic bishop

Les hommes sont fort à plaindre d'avoir à être gouvernés par un roi, qui n'est qu'homme semblable à eux; car il faudroit des dieux pour redresser les hommes. Mais les rois ne sont pas moins à plaindre, n'étant qu'hommes, c'est-à-dire foibles et imparfaits, d'avoir à gouverner cette multitude innombrable d'hommes corrompus et trompeurs.
Bk. 10, p. 72; translation p. 174.
Les aventures de Télémaque (1699)

“That the gods superintend all the affairs of men, and that there are such beings as dæmons.”

Diogenes Laërtius (180–240) biographer of ancient Greek philosophers

Plato, 42.
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 3: Plato

“I did not attend the services, because it seems to me, as Pythagoras says, the body is the tomb of the soul and that by being born a person has already begun to die.”

Philip K. Dick book Confessions of a Crap Artist

Confessions of a Crap Artist (1959)

“Pythagoras being asked how a man ought to conduct himself towards his country, when it had acted iniquitously with respect to him, replied, as to a mother.”

Stobaeus Ancient Greek anthologist

40
Pythagorean Ethical Sentences

“There in Rangoon I realized that the gods
were enemies, just like God,
of the poor human being.
Gods
in alabaster extended
like white whales,
gods gilded like spikes,
serpent gods entwining
the crime of being born,
naked and elegant buddhas
smiling at the cocktail party
of empty eternity
like Christ on his horrible cross,
all of them capable of anything,
of imposing on us their heaven,
all with torture or pistol
to purchase piety or burn our blood,
fierce gods made by men
to conceal their cowardice,
and there it was all like that,
the whole earth reeking of heaven,
and heavenly merchandise.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Allí en Rangoon comprendí que los dioses
eran tan enemigos como Dios
del pobre ser humano.
Dioses
de alabastro tendidos
como ballenas blancas,
dioses dorados como las espigas,
dioses serpientes enroscados
al crimen de nacer,
budhas desnudos y elegantes
sonriendo en el coktail
de la vacía eternidad
como Cristo en su cruz horrible,
todos dispuestos a todo,
a imponernos su cielo,
todos con llagas o pistola
para comprar piedad o quemarnos la sangre,
dioses feroces del hombre
para esconder la cobardía,
y allí todo era así,
toda la tierra olía a cielo,
a mercadería celeste.
Religión en el Este (Religion in the East) from Memorial of Isla Negra [Memorial de Isla Negra] (1964), trans. by Anthony Kerrigan in Selected Poems by Pablo Neruda [Houghton Mifflin, 1990, ISBN 0-395-54418-1] (p. 463).

“Some old poet's grand imagination is imposed on us as adamantine everlasting truth, and God's own word! Pythagoras says, truly enough, "A true assertion respecting God, is an assertion of God"; but we may well doubt if there is any example of this in literature.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/7cncd10.txt (1849), Sunday

“Writing is a bit like being a god”

Charlie Higson (1958) British actor, writer and singer

“There are men and gods, and beings like Pythagoras.”

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