Pythagoras (c.580–500 BCE) was purportedly a leading Greek mathematician and philosopher, best known for the theorem about right-angled triangles that bears his name.
Pythagoras is one of antiquity’s most mysterious personalities; not much is known about his life. Some scholars have doubted not only his intellectual achievements but also whether he ever existed.
Pythagoras is supposed to have been born on the Greek island of Samos. He journeyed extensively in his youth, visiting Egypt and Persia, before settling in Crotone in southern Italy. There, he established a school of philosophy centered on mathematics, mysticism, and rational inquiry, yet it was thoroughly esoteric. His disciples, the Pythagoreans, conducted a systematized life of study and exercise and refrained from consuming meat, beans, or fish. Pythagoreans such as Philolaus and Archytas became mathematical luminaries in their own right.
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He who knoweth not what he ought to know, is a brute beast among men; he that knoweth no more than he hath need of, is a man among brute beasts; and he that knoweth all that may be known, is as a God among men.
—Pythagoras
Topics: Learning
As long as man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings he will never know health or peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other.
—Pythagoras
Wisdom thoroughly learned, will never be forgotten.
—Pythagoras
Topics: Wisdom
Do not say a little in many words but a great deal in a few.
—Pythagoras
Topics: Words
Anger begins in folly, and ends in repentance.
—Pythagoras
Topics: Anger
Learn to be silent. Let your quiet mind listen and absorb.
—Pythagoras
It is better wither to be silent, or to say things of more value than silence. Sooner throw a pearl at hazard than an idle or useless word; and do not say a little in many words, but a great deal in a few.
—Pythagoras
Topics: Silence
A wound from a tongue is worse than a wound from a sword; for the latter affects only the body, the former the spirit.
—Pythagoras
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