Zeno Quotes

“Why should we place Christ at the top and summit of the human race? Was he kinder, more forgiving, more self-sacrificing thanBuddha?Was he wiser, did he meet death with more perfect calmness, thanSocrates?Was he more patient, more charitable, thanEpictetus?Was he a greater philosopher, a deeper thinker, thanEpicurus?In what respect was he the superior ofZoroaster?Was he gentler thanLao-tsze,more universal thanConfucius?Were his ideas of human rights and duties superior to those ofZeno?Did he express grander truths thanCicero?Was his mind subtler thanSpinoza’s? Was his brain equal toKepler’s orNewton’s? Was he grander in death – a sublimer martyr thanBruno?Was he in intelligence, in the force and beauty of expression, in breadth and scope of thought, in wealth of illustration, in aptness of comparison, in knowledge of the human brain and heart, of all passions, hopes and fears, the equal ofShakespeare,the greatest of the human race?”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, About The Holy Bible

“if being is many, it must be both like and unlike, and this is impossible, for neither can the like be unlike, nor the unlike like”
― Zeno

“Forse traverso una catastrofe inaudita prodotta dagli ordigni ritorneremo alla salute. Quando i gas velenosi non basteranno più, un uomo fatto come tutti gli altri, nel segreto di una stanza di questo mondo, inventerà un esplosivo incomparabile, in confronto al quale gli esplosivi attualmente esistenti saranno considerati quali innocui giocattoli. Ed un altro uomo fatto anche lui come tutti gli altri, ma degli altri un po’ più ammalato, ruberà tale esplosivo e s’arrampicherà al centro della terra per porlo nel punto ove il suo effetto potrà essere il massimo. Ci sarà un’esplosione enorme che nessuno udrà e la terra ritornata alla forma di nebulosa errerà nei cieli priva di parassiti e di malattie.
[La coscienza di Zeno, 1923]”
― Italo Svevo, Zeno's Conscience

“According to Zeno, a passion is an unnatural motion of the soul, but with strong will one can achieve an apathy. If he was alive today, he would have been proud of us.”
― Ljupka Cvetanova, The New Land

“Mathematics is unable to specify whether motion is continuous, for it deals merely with hypothetical relations and can make its variable continuous or discontinuous at will. The paradoxes of Zeno are consequences of the failure to appreciate this fact and of the resulting lack of a precise specification of the problem. The former is a matter of scientific description a posteriori, whereas the latter is a matter solely of mathematical definition a priori. The former may consequently suggest that motion be defined mathematically in terms of continuous variable, but cannot, because of the limitations of sensory perception, prove that it must be so defined.”
― Carl B. Boyer, The History of the Calculus and Its Conceptual Development