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Home > Dictionary of Science Quotations > Scientist Names Index E > Epicurus Quotes

Epicurus
(341 B.C. - c. 270 B.C.)

Greek philosopher.

Science Quotes by Epicurus (4 quotes)

A world is a circumscribed portion of sky... it is a piece cut off from the infinite.
— Epicurus
Letter to Pythocles, in Epicurus: The Extant Remains (1926), trans. C. Bailey, 59.
Science quotes on:  |  Cut (116)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Portion (86)  |  Sky (174)  |  World (1850)

Earthquakes may be brought about because wind is caught up in the earth, so the earth is dislocated in small masses and is continually shaken, and that causes it to sway.
— Epicurus
Letter to Pythocles, in Epicurus: The Extant Remains (1926), trans. C. Bailey, 71.
Science quotes on:  |  Cause (561)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Earthquake (37)  |  Small (489)  |  Wind (141)

There are infinite worlds both like and unlike this world of ours. For the atoms being infinite in number... are borne on far out into space.
— Epicurus
Letter to Herodotus, in Epicurus: The Extant Remains (1926), trans. C. Bailey, 25.
Science quotes on:  |  Atom (381)  |  Being (1276)  |  Both (496)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Number (710)  |  Space (523)  |  World (1850)

When someone admits one and rejects another which is equally in accordance with the appearances, it is clear that he has quitted all physical explanation and descended into myth.
— Epicurus
Letter to Pythocles, 87. Trans. R. W. Sharples.
Science quotes on:  |  Appearance (145)  |  Descend (49)  |  Equally (129)  |  Explanation (246)  |  Myth (58)  |  Physical (518)  |  Reject (67)  |  Theory (1015)



Quotes by others about Epicurus (2)

It is a vulgar belief that our astronomical knowledge dates only from the recent century when it was rescued from the monks who imprisoned Galileo; but Hipparchus…who among other achievements discovered the precession of the eqinoxes, ranks with the Newtons and the Keplers; and Copernicus, the modern father of our celestial science, avows himself, in his famous work, as only the champion of Pythagoras, whose system he enforces and illustrates. Even the most modish schemes of the day on the origin of things, which captivate as much by their novelty as their truth, may find their precursors in ancient sages, and after a careful analysis of the blended elements of imagination and induction which charaterise the new theories, they will be found mainly to rest on the atom of Epicurus and the monad of Thales. Scientific, like spiritual truth, has ever from the beginning been descending from heaven to man.
Lothair (1879), preface, xvii.
Science quotes on:  |  Achievement (187)  |  Analysis (244)  |  Ancient (198)  |  Astronomy (251)  |  Atom (381)  |  Beginning (312)  |  Belief (615)  |  Celestial (53)  |  Century (319)  |  Nicolaus Copernicus (54)  |  Discover (571)  |  Element (322)  |  Father (113)  |  Find (1014)  |  Galileo Galilei (134)  |  Heaven (266)  |  Himself (461)  |  Hipparchus (5)  |  Imagination (349)  |  Imprison (11)  |  Induction (81)  |  Johannes Kepler (95)  |  Knowledge (1647)  |  Man (2252)  |  Modern (402)  |  Most (1728)  |  New (1273)  |  Sir Isaac Newton (363)  |  Novelty (31)  |  Origin (250)  |  Other (2233)  |  Precession (4)  |  Precursor (5)  |  Pythagoras (38)  |  Rank (69)  |  Recent (78)  |  Rest (287)  |  Sage (25)  |  Scheme (62)  |  Scientific (955)  |  Spiritual (94)  |  System (545)  |  Thales (9)  |  Theory (1015)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Truth (1109)  |  Vulgar (33)  |  Will (2350)  |  Work (1402)

Thales thought that water was the primordial substance of all things. Heraclitus of Ephesus… thought that it was fire. Democritus and his follower Epicurus thought that it was the atoms, termed by our writers “bodies that cannot be cut up” or, by some “indivisibles.” The school of the Pythagoreans added air and the earthy to the water and fire. Hence, although Democritus did not in a strict sense name them, but spoke only of indivisible bodies, yet he seems to have meant these same elements, because when taken by themselves they cannot be harmed, nor are they susceptible of dissolution, nor can they be cut up into parts, but throughout time eternal they forever retain an infinite solidity.
Vitruvius
In De Architectura, Book 2, Chap 2, Sec. 1. As translated in Morris Hicky Morgan (trans.), Vitruvius: The Ten Books on Architecture (1914), 42.
Science quotes on:  |  Air (366)  |  Atom (381)  |  Cut (116)  |  Democritus of Abdera (17)  |  Dissolution (11)  |  Earth (1076)  |  Element (322)  |  Eternal (113)  |  Fire (203)  |  Forever (111)  |  Heraclitus (15)  |  Indivisible (22)  |  Infinite (243)  |  Name (359)  |  Primordial (14)  |  Pythagoras (38)  |  Retain (57)  |  School (227)  |  Sense (785)  |  Solid (119)  |  Substance (253)  |  Term (357)  |  Thales (9)  |  Themselves (433)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Thought (995)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Time (1911)  |  Water (503)  |  Writer (90)


Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
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