Pythagoreanism Quotes
A curated collection of the best quotes about Pythagoreanism.
Top Quotes
“Mathematics”
“Zoroastrianism”
“[T]he problem... is still extremely difficult.”
“Pythagoreans were... open to new ideas.”
“It is certain that the Theory of Numbers originated in the school of Pythagoras.”
“In Copernicus' time Pythagoreans still believed that the only way to truth was by mathematics.”
“This sufficiently justifies... regarding the "fragments of Philolaos" with... more than suspicion.”
“Wikipedia: Pythagoreanism”
“Philolaos... is a sufficiently remarkable figure... and has... been spoken of as a "precursor of Copernicus."”
“[T]he theory is... emphatically expressed by the Athenian Stranger in the Laws, who is... Plato... expounding a novel theory.”
“These thinkers seem to consider that number is the principle both as matter for things and as constituting their attributes and permanent states.”
“Pythagoreanism by Carl Huffman*tanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy”
“[T]hink, then, of a "field" of darkness or breath marked out by luminous units ...which the starry heavens would naturally suggest.”
“The science of geometry had... made considerable advances, but the old view of quantity as a sum of units had not been revised... so... [ such a] doctrine... was inevitable.”
“[T]his way of regarding the point... line, and... surface is closely bound... with... representing numbers by dots... in symmetrical patterns... attribut[ed]... to the Pythagoreans.”
“[W]e cannot safely take Plato as our guide to the original meaning of the Pythagorean theory, though... from him alone... we can learn to regard it sympathetically.”
“We are told that the other book which passed under the name of Pythagoras was really by Lysis.”
“[A] view... Aristotle sometimes attributes to the Pythagoreans... things were "like numbers." He does not appear to regard this as inconsistent with the doctrine that things are numbers...”
“We know nothing of Timaios except what Plato tells us... and he may... be a fictitious character like the Eleatic Stranger.”
“Sokrates does not introduce the theory as a novelty. The reality of the "ideas" is the... reality "we are always talking about," and they are explained in a peculiar vocabulary... of a school.”