Greek Texts & Translations

Of songs still sung these verses belong to him:

Many words do not declare an understanding heart.

Seek one sole wisdom.

Choose one sole good.

For thou wilt check the tongues of chatterers prating without end.

Here too are certain current apophthegms assigned to him:

Of all things that are, the most ancient is God, for he is uncreated.

The most beautiful is the universe, for it is God's workmanship.

The greatest is space, for it holds all things.

The swiftest is mind, for it speeds everywhere.

The strongest, necessity, for it masters all.

The wisest, time, for it brings everything to light.

He held there was no difference between life and death. "Why then," said one, "do you not die?" "Because," said he, "there is no difference." 1.1.36 To the question which is older, day or night, he replied: "Night is the older by one day." Some one asked him whether a man could hide an evil deed from the gods: "No," he replied, "nor yet an evil thought." To the adulterer who inquired if he should deny the charge upon oath he replied that perjury was no worse than adultery. Being asked what is difficult, he replied, "To know oneself." "What is easy?" "To give advice to another." "What is most pleasant?" "Success." "What is the divine?" "That which has neither beginning nor end." To the question what was the strangest thing he had ever seen, his answer was, "An aged tyrant." "How can one best bear adversity?" "If he should see his enemies in worse plight." "How shall we lead the best and most righteous life?" "By refraining from doing what we blame in others." 1.1.37 "What man is happy?" "He who has a healthy body, a resourceful mind and a docile nature." He tells us to remember friends, whether present or absent; not to pride ourselves upon outward appearance, but to study to be beautiful in character. "Shun ill-gotten gains," he says. "Let not idle words prejudice thee against those who have shared thy confidence." "Whatever provision thou hast made for thy parents, the same must thou expect from thy children." He explained the overflow of the Nile as due to the etesian winds which, blowing in the contrary direction, drove the waters upstream.

Apollodorus in his Chronology places his birth in the first year of the 35th Olympiad [640 b.c.]. 1.1.38 He died at the age of 78 (or, according to Sosicrates, of 90 years); for he died in the 58th Olympiad, being contemporary with Croesus, whom he undertook to take across the Halys without building a bridge, by diverting the river.

There have lived five other men who bore the name of Thales, as enumerated by Demetrius of Magnesia in his Dictionary of Men of the Same Name:

1. A rhetorician of Callatia, with an affected style.

2. A painter of Sicyon, of great gifts.

3. A contemporary of Hesiod, Homer and Lycurgus, in very early times.

4. A person mentioned by Duris in his work On Painting.

5. An obscure person in more recent times who is mentioned by Dionysius in his Critical Writings.

Thales the Sage died as he was watching an athletic contest from heat, thirst, and the weakness incident to advanced age. And the inscription on his tomb is ^note:

Here in a narrow tomb great Thales lies;

Yet his renown for wisdom reached the skies.

I may also cite one of my own, from my first book, Epigrams in Various Metres ^note:

As Thales watched the games one festal day

The fierce sun smote him, and he passed away;

Zeus, thou didst well to raise him; his dim eyes

Could not from earth behold the starry skies. ^note

To him belongs the proverb "Know thyself," which Antisthenes in his Successions of Philosophers attributes to Phemonoë, though admitting that it was appropriated by Chilon.

This seems the proper place for a general notice of the Seven Sages, of whom we have such accounts as the following. Damon of Cyrene in his History of the Philosophers carps at all sages, but especially the Seven. Anaximenes remarks that they all applied themselves to poetry; Dicaearchus that they were neither sages nor philosophers, but merely shrewd men with a turn for legislation. ^note Archetimus of Syracuse describes their meeting at the court of Cypselus, on which occasion he himself happened to be present; for which Ephorus substitutes a meeting without Thales at the court of Croesus. Some make them meet at the Pan-Ionian festival, at Corinth, and at Delphi. 1.1.41 Their utterances are variously reported, and are attributed now to one now to the other, for instance the following ^note:

Chilon of Lacedaemon's words are true:

Nothing too much; good comes from measure due.

Nor is there any agreement how the number is made up; for Maeandrius, in place of Cleobulus and Myson, includes Leophantus, son of Gorgiadas, of Lebedus or Ephesus, and Epimenides the Cretan in the list; Plato in his Protagoras admits Myson and leaves out Periander; Ephorus substitutes Anacharsis for Myson; others add Pythagoras to the Seven. Dicaearchus hands down four names fully recognized: Thales, Bias, Pittacus and Solon; and appends the names of six others, from whom he selects three: Aristodemus, Pamphylus, Chilon the Lacedaemonian, Cleobulus, Anacharsis, Periander. Others add Acusilaus, son of Cabas or Scabras, of Argos.