Plato, Apology, 26d-26e
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My dear Meletus, do you think you are prosecuting Anaxagoras? Are you so contemptuous of these men and think them so ignorant of letters as not to know that the books of Anaxagoras of Clazomenae are full of those theories, and further, that the young men learn from me what they can buy from time to time for a drachma, at most, in the bookshops, and ridicule Socrates if he pretends that these theories are his own, especially as they are so absurd? Is that, by Zeus, what you think of me, Meletus, that I do not believe that there are any gods?—That is what I say, that you do not believe in the gods at all.

— Plato

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "My dear Meletus, do you think you are prosecuting Anaxagoras? Are you so contemptuous of these men and think them so ignorant of letters as not to know that the books of Anaxagoras of Clazomenae are full of those theories, and further, that the young men learn from me what they can buy from time to time for a drachma, at most, in the bookshops, and ridicule Socrates if he pretends that these theories are his own, especially as they are so absurd? Is that, by Zeus, what you think of me, Meletus, that I do not believe that there are any gods?—That is what I say, that you do not believe in the gods at all." in the context of "Plato, Apology, 26d-26e" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "Anaxagoras" (Quotes about Anaxagoras) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Anaxagoras

About Anaxagoras

Anaxagoras (c. 500 BC – 428 BC) was a Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from Clazomenae in Asia Minor. He introduced the concept of Nous (Mind), as an ordering force in the cosmos. He regarded material substance as an infinite multitude of imperishable primary elements, referring all generation and disappearance to mixture and separation respectively.