“The nature of God is a circle of which the centre is everywhere and the circumference is nowhere.”
– Empedocles: The Extant Fragments
“One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love”
– Oedipus at Colonus
“The life which is unexamined is not worth living”
– The Apology of Socrates, Plato (Socrates 469-399BCE)
“Doubt everything. Find your own light.”
– Buddha, (563-483BCE)
“I will use my power to help the sick to the best of my ability and judgement; I will abstain from harming or wronging any man by it.”
– The Hippocratic Oath (460 – 377BCE)
“I am a citizen of the world”
– Digoenes Laertius (c. 412-323BCE) – Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
“Time the devourer of everything”
– Ovid (43-18CE) – The Metamorphoses 8 SCE
“Knowledge is power” ‘Ipsa scientia potestas set’
– Sir Francis Bacon – 1561-1626 Sacred Meditations. From the 11th Meditation: Of Heresis, 1597
“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”
– John Donne 1572-163. Meditation 17, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, 1624
“I do not feel obliged to believe that same God who endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect had intended for use to forgo their use”
– Galileo Galilei 1564-1642. Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, 1632
“I think, therefore I am” ‘Ego cogito, ergo sum’
– Rene Descartes 1596-1650 Principles of Philosophy, 1644
“Man is a social animal”
_ Baruch Spinoza 1632-1677. Ethics, 1677
“Musick has charms to soothe a savage breast”
– William Congreve 1670-1729. The Morning Bride, 1697.
“For fools rush in where angels fear to tread”
– Alexander Pope 1688-1744. An essay on criticism, 1711
“Man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains”
– Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1712-1778. The Social Contract, 1762
“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”
– Thomas Jefferson 1743-1826. Draft of the Declaration of Independence, 11-28 June 1776
“The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason. I have never used any other, and I trust I never shall.”
– Thomas Paine 1737-1809. The Age of Reason, 1794
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