"Pythagorean" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the wordy tumult permitting the Irishman's lisping scream to penetrate the dense and agitated circle, in his praiseworthy efforts to do business. Old Crocky, too, was there, mounted on a subdued wretch of the horse-species, tenanted, according to the Pythagorean doctrine, by the evil spirit of some defunct croupier, and ready to "return on the nick" as usual. In this "mess tossed up of Hockley-Hole and White's," in addition to our foregoing ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... this society had no connection whatever with the dominant religion. {66} The Kabbalistae taught virtue and science, and thus were, perhaps, an auxiliary, but certainly no opponent to the sacred teachings of the holy law. The Pythagorean league taught philosophy alone; full instruction was given in the liberal arts and sciences in accordance with the learning of that age. But, after it was thought destroyed (and it was suppressed by Cylon and his faction, about the year ...
— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield
... a wise man, a king, a fool, a beggar, a prince, a statesman, a soldier, a tailor, an alderman, a poet, a knight, a dancing master, and a bishop. Whoever would see how vividly, with what an honest and vigorous verisimilitude, the doctrine can be embodied, should read "The Modern Pythagorean," by Dr. Macnish. But perhaps the most humorous passage of this sort is the following description from a remarkable writer of ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... proper is developed in the later schools of philosophy, in which Oriental theology or demonology was largely mixed. Apollonius of Tyana, a modern Pythagorean, is the most famous magician of antiquity. This great miracle-worker of paganism was born at the commencement of the Christian era; and it has been observed that his miracles, though quite independent ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... seem to be those of a mere glutton and gastrolater,—of one like the gourmand of old time, who longed for the neck of an ostrich or crane that the pleasure of swallowing dainty morsels might be as protracted as possible,—let me assume a vegetable, Pythagorean standpoint, and thence survey this accumulation of creature comforts, that is, that portion of them which consists of dead flesh. The vegetables and the fruits, the blazonry of autumn, are of course ignored from this point of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... noble enterprises and the saintly heroism of Olympus and of Calvary, of Homer and the Fathers, of Plato and St. Ignatius; the other was filled with the philosophical thought of the primitive Italian and Pythagorean epochs, fecundated by his own conceptions and by the new age; philosopher and apostle of an idea, Bruno consecrated his life to the development of it in his writings and to the propagation of his principles ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... and potatoesa glass of ice-cold water to wash them downantiquity gives no warrant for it, my lord. This house used to be accounted a hospitium, a place of retreat for Christians; but your lordship's diet is that of a heathen Pythagorean, or Indian Braminnay, more severe than either, if you ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... worship one of them especially, whom he called Tacita, which means silent or dumb. This seems to have been done in imitation of Pythagoras, who especially revered silence. His legislation about images was also connected with the Pythagorean doctrine, which says that first principles cannot be touched or seen, but are invisible spiritual essences; for Numa forbade the Romans to worship any likenesses of men or of beasts. Among them there was no image of a god, either carved or moulded, in the early times. ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... wise, the nervous, and (as our critics say) a second Homer, seems lightly to regard what becomes of his promises and Pythagorean dreams. Is not Naevius in people's hands, and sticking almost fresh in their memory? So sacred is every ancient poem. As often as a debate arises, whether this poet or the other be preferable; Pacuvius bears away ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... Greek translation of Fontenelle's Entretiens sur la Pluralite des Mondes. John Camarases, a Constantinopolitan, translated into French the apocryphal treatise, De Universi Natura, attributed to Ocellus Lucanus, a Pythagorean philosopher, who is said to have flourished in Lucania in the fifth ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... the meaning of any text, they appealed invariably to what was called the Glossa Ordinaria [that is, the official explanation], and the phrase Glossa dicit (the Gloss says), was as common and decisive on their lips as anciently the phrase Ipse dixit (he, viz., the teacher, has said) in the Pythagorean ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... Pythagorean doctrine, absolutely opposed to the Holy Scriptures, concerning the mobility of the earth and the immobility ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... the Pythagorean system as representing the actual facts. This was the result of a recognition of the sun's amazing distance, and therefore of his enormous size. The heliocentric system, thus regarding the sun as the central orb, degraded the earth to a very subordinate ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... specially favoured by heaven, and that he held an intimate communication with the gods. Cicero himself has gone so far as to assert that Hercules had a prodigious esteem for him; and Apollonius[1] of Thyana, a Pythagorean philosopher, said in an oration he delivered before the tyrant Domitian, that "Sophocles, the Athenian, could tie up the winds, and ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... Egypt where he resided twenty-two years; he was initiated into the sacerdotal order, and, from his spirit of inquiry, he has been justly said to have acquired a great deal of Egyptian learning, which he afterwards introduced into Italy. The Pythagorean schools which he established in Italy when writing was taught, were destroyed when the Platonic or new philosophy prevailed over the former. Polybius (lib. ii. p. 175) and Jamblichus (in vita Pythag.) mention many circumstances, relative to these facts, quoted from authors now lost; as doth Porphyry, ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... value. Historians of the philosophy | of science have little trouble in disposing | these early experimentalist efforts of Bacon. | | His work on sound was somewhat better— | experimental-theoretical. It is a | post-pythagorean theory of harmonics and | still not appropriately analyzed. | Contemproary musicologists like to quote | the passages on sound in NEW ATLANTIS | for being compatible with todays approach | to music. | | By the time of the Novum Organum Bacon | was seeking a more "general theory of | science." ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon
... restless turmoil of the nineteenth century. He wished to discover everything anew for himself, instead of building upon the discoveries of others. His conversations, usually in the parlors of some philanthropic gentlemen, were made up partly of Pythagorean speculation and partly of fine ethical rhapsody which sometimes rose to genuine eloquence. They served to interest neophytes in the operations of their own minds, and the more experienced found much the same satisfaction in it as in Emerson's discourses. He was an excellent ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... come to the knowledge of the said holy congregation that the false Pythagorean doctrine of the mobility of the earth and the immobility of the sun, entirely opposed to Holy writ, which is taught by Nicolas Copernicus, is now published abroad and received by many. In order that this opinion ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... Culture.—Men of thought have at all times been distinguished for their age. Among the venerable sages are Appolonius of Tyana, a follower of Pythagoras, who lived to over one hundred; Xenophilus, also a Pythagorean, was one hundred and six; Demonax, a Stoic, lived past one hundred; Isocrates was ninety-eight, and Solon, Sophocles, Pindar, Anacreon, and Xenophon ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... style and subject, having a beauty 'as of a statue,' while the companion Dialogue of the Phaedrus is marked by a sort of Gothic irregularity. More too than in any other of his Dialogues, Plato is emancipated from former philosophies. The genius of Greek art seems to triumph over the traditions of Pythagorean, Eleatic, or Megarian systems, and 'the old quarrel of poetry and philosophy' has at ...
— Symposium • Plato
... the primitive mode of association and coherence of groups, began to break down in the sixth century B.C. in Greece. It was superseded by the social tie of a common religious faith and ritual. The Pythagorean and Orphic sects developed this tie. They had a revelation of the other world, a system of mystic and cathartic rites, which cleared men of ritual uncleanness, purified them, and "saved" them. The cathartic rites were a means of warding off evil spirits and did the ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... line of the creases, assigned the date of the purchase some three years back. The roomy garments failed to disguise the lean proportions of the wearer, due apparently rather to constitution than to a Pythagorean regimen, for the worthy man was endowed with thick lips and a sensual mouth; and when he smiled, displayed a set of white teeth which would have ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... not only to the study of the Pythagorean philosophy as to numbers, but also to the Kabalah, and will aid you in discovering the True Word, and understanding what was meant by "The Music of the Spheres." Modern science strikingly confirms the ideas of Pythagoras in regard to the properties of numbers, ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... knight for his unannounced visitation of Montgomery was Sunday at dinner time. He was at once asked to sit down and partake of the chickens and bacon which had just been placed on the table, but here was a dilemma; Sir Richard, although neither a Brahmin nor a Jew, avowed himself a staunch Pythagorean—he could eat no flesh! Luckily there was a plentiful supply of carrots and turnips, and—jelly. But was the latter made from calves' feet? Montgomery assured his guest that it was not; but, added he, with a conscientious regard for ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... is universally granted that Ennius, though an Italian, was excellently learned in the Greek language. His verses were stuffed with fragments of it, even to a fault; and he himself believed, according to the Pythagorean opinion, that the soul of Homer was transfused into him, which Persius observes in his sixth satire—postquam destertuit esse Maeonides. But this being only the private opinion of so inconsiderable a man as I am, I leave ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... book I. ch. v., contains an examination of the Pythagorean doctrine which maintains Number to be the Substance of all things:—[Greek: all' auto to apeiron kai auto to hen ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... been reading a treatise of Baader's on the Pythagorean square in nature, or the four quarters of the globe. Whether it be that I have for some years past interested myself more in this species of writing, or that he has contrived to make his intentions clearer, the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... he can be so styled) awoke from a restless sleep, with the first stanza of the following piece in his mind. He has no memory of composing it, either awake or asleep. He had long known the perhaps Pythagorean fable of the bean-juice, but certainly never thought of applying it to an amorous correspondence! The remaining verses are the contribution ...
— New Collected Rhymes • Andrew Lang
... brain for his hands. Where the degree of dependence corresponds exactly to the difference of ability, Aristotle, leaving its abuses out of the question, declares slavery to be just. See, also, Eth. Nicom., VIII, 11. Similarly the Pythagorean Bryson in Stoboeus, Florid. LXXXV, 15. But Aristotle would hold up emancipation to all slaves as a reward they might have in prospect. Polit VII, 9, 9; OEcon. I, 5. It is characteristic of the many testaments of philosophers, found ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... will answere that they be immortall, and that as soone as any one departeth out of this life, he becommeth a diuel if he haue liued well in this world, if otherwise, that the same diuel changeth him into a bufle, oxe, or dogge. [Marginal note: Pythagorean like.] Wherefore to this diuel they doe much honour, to him doe they sacrifice, praying him that he will make them like vnto himselfe, and not like other beastes. They haue moreouer another sort of temples, wherein both ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... Herodot. I. 91, quoted by Blomfield: [Greek: ten pepromenen moiren adynata esti apophygeein kai to theo]. On this Pythagorean notion ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus
... are not to be obtained, without some labor and pains, against contrary habits. It was a wild bounce of a Pythagorean, who defied any one to produce an instance of a person, who had long lived on milk and vegetables, who ever cut his own throat, hanged, or made way with himself; who had ever suffered at Tyburn, gone to Newgate, or to Moorfields; (and, he added rather profanely,) or, ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... but gets more and more confused with grapes, till the Renaissance carvers are content with any kind of boss full of seed, but insist on such boss {104} or bursting globe as some essential part of their ornament;—the bean-pod for the same reason (not without Pythagorean notions, and some of republican election) is used by Brunelleschi for main decoration of the lantern of Florence duomo; and, finally, the ornamentation gets so shapeless, that M. Violet-le-Duc, in his 'Dictionary of Ornament,' loses trace of its origin altogether, and fancies ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... Pythagorean; he held that there are two principal powers in nature, amity and discord, ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... to the great lily growing in the Himalayan lake, Karl had mentioned from time to time to his companions: for he knew that the Nelumbium speciosum was the celebrated Pythagorean bean mentioned in the writings of the Greeks—more especially by Herodotus ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... imprinted by a cowboy of precocious intellect. I found these in handsome, neatly executed letters, printed and burnished with leaf-gold, on the wall of his sleeping-room. They were really golden verses, and may well be styled Pythagorean from their ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 215, December 10, 1853 • Various
... it is evident that Epicharmus the philosopher was no other than Epicharmus the philosophical poet—the delight of Plato, who was himself half a Pythagorean.—See Bentley, Diss. Phal., p. 201; Laertius, viii., 78; Fynes Clinton, Fast. Hell., vol. ii., introduction, p. ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
