Anaximander

The first men were born from fish-like creatures.

The earth was originally fluid and gradually dried out.

The winds are caused by the exhalations of the earth.

The apeiron is eternal motion.

The moon is a mixture of air and fire.

The apeiron is without qualities.

The apeiron is the first principle and element of all things.

The apeiron is the source of justice and injustice.

The apeiron is the divine.

The apeiron is the ultimate cause.

The apeiron is the element of all existing things.

The Non-Limited (apeiron) is the original material of existing things; further, the source from which existing things derive their existence is also that to which they return at their destruction, according to necessity; for they give justice and make reparation to one another for their injustice, according to the arrangement of Time.

The earth is cylindrical, three times as wide as it is deep, and only the upper part is inhabited. But this earth is free in space, and not supported by anything.

The heavenly bodies are wheels of fire, separated off from the fire of the world and enclosed by air. They have breathing-holes, certain pipe-like passages, through which they appear; and eclipses occur when these holes are blocked.

The sun is a circle twenty-eight times the size of the earth, like a chariot wheel with its rim hollow and full of fire, showing the fire at a certain point through an opening as through the nozzle of a bellows.

The moon is a circle nineteen times the size of the earth, like a chariot wheel, with its rim hollow and full of fire, just like the circle of the sun, and placed obliquely, having a single breathing-hole like the nozzle of a bellows.

Living creatures came into being from moisture evaporated by the sun. Man was originally similar to another creature—that is, to a fish.

The first animals were generated in moisture, enclosed in thorny barks; but as their age increased, they came forth on to the drier part, and when the bark had broken off, they lived a different kind of life for a short time.

From warm water and earth emerged either fish or creatures very like fish; in these, men grew, in the form of embryos retained within until puberty; then at last the fish-like creatures burst and men and women emerged, already able to nourish themselves.

The stars are borne by the circles and the spheres on which they are fixed.