Skip to content

Ptolemy Quotes

100–170 Greece

Claudius Ptolemaeus (Greek: Κλαύδιος Πτολεμαῖος; c. 100 – c. 170), known in English as Ptolemy, was an ancient Greek geographer, astronomer, and astrologer who probably lived and worked in Alexandria, off the coast of Egypt.

Greece
Astronomers
Geographers

Also known as: Claudius Ptolemaeus

Random Ptolemy quote

7 quotes

Everything that is hard to attain is easily assailed by the generality of men.

As material fortune is associated with the properties of the body, so honor belongs to those of the soul.

We consider it a good principle to explain the phenomena by the simplest hypothesis possible.

The length of lifetakes the leading place among inquiries about events following birth.

There are three classes of friendship and enmity, since men are so disposed to one another either by preference or by need or through pleasure and pain.

Ptolemy's Geography is the only book on cartography to have survived from the classical period and one of the most influential scientific works of all time.

I know that I am mortal by nature and ephemeral, but when I trace at my pleasure the windings to and fro of the heavenly bodies, I no longer touch earth with my feet. I stand in the presence of Zeus himself and take my fill of ambrosia.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Ptolemy (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.