Xenophanes
Xenophanes of Colophon (Ancient Greek: Ξενοφάνης ὁ Κολοφώνιος IPA: [ksenopʰánɛːs ho kolopʰɔ́ːnios]; c.570 – c.475 BC) was a Greek philosopher, theologian, poet, and social and religious critic. Knowledge of his views comes from fragments of his poetry, surviving as quotations by later Greek writers. To judge from these, his elegiac and iambic poetry criticized and satirized a wide range of ideas, including Homer and Hesiod, the belief in the pantheon of anthropomorphic gods and the Greeks' veneration of athleticism. He is the earliest Greek poet who claims explicitly to be writing for future generations, creating "fame that will reach all of Greece, and never die while the Greek kind of songs survives."
“One must be a sage to recognize a sage.”
Xenophanes
“The Ethiops say that their gods are flat-nosed and black,While the Thracians say that theirs have blue eyes and red hair.Yet if cattle or horses or lions had hands and could draw,And could sculpt like men, then the horses would draw their godsLike horses, and cattle like cattle; and each they would shapeBodies of gods in the likeness, each kind, of their own.”
Xenophanes
“No man knows distinctly anything, and no man ever will.”
Xenophanes
“The gods did not reveal, from the beginning,All things to us, but in the course of timeThrough seeking we may learn and know things better.But as for certain truth, no man has known it,Nor shall he know it,neither of the godsNor yet of all the things of which I speak.For even if by chance he were to utterThe final truth, he would himself not know it:For all is but a woven web of guesses”
Xenophanes
“For all things come from earth, and all things end by becoming earth.”
Xenophanes
“Men always makes gods in their own image.”
Xenophanes