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I would rather discover a single [geometrical] demonstration than become king of the Persians.

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Source, in full

(ca. 400 BCE) as quoted by Will Durant, The Story of Civilization: Part II – The Life of Greece (1939) Ch. XVI, §II, p. 352, citing George Grote, Plato and the Other Companions of Socrates (1875) also see 1865 ed., Vol. 1, p. 68, and citing Charles Montague Bakewell, Sourcebook in Ancient Philosophy, (1909) also see 1907 ed., p. 62.

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Mathematics

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Medicine heals diseases of the body, wisdom frees the soul from passions.

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No power and no treasure can outweigh the extension of our knowledge.

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Beautiful objects are wrought by study through effort, but ugly things are reaped automatically without toil.

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The animal needing something knows how much it needs, the man does not.

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Immoderate desire is the mark of a child, not a man.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Democritus (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.