Gorgias
A prominent Sophist known for his skepticism and his elaborate rhetorical style.
Most quoted
"If being is generated, it comes either from being or from non-being; but it cannot come from being, for if it is being, it is not generated; nor from non-being, for nothing comes from nothing."
— from On Non-Existence
"Speech is a powerful lord, which by means of the finest and most invisible body effects the divinest works: it can stop fear and banish grief and create joy and nourish pity."
— from Encomium of Helen
"Speech is a powerful lord, which by means of the finest and most invisible body effects the divinest works: it can stop fear and banish grief and create joy and nurture pity."
— from Encomium of Helen
All quotes by Gorgias (155)
Words are the physicians of a mind diseased.
The eye and the ear are the scouts of the mind.
Beauty is the gift of God.
Fortune is not satisfied with inflicting one calamity.
The gods envy human happiness.
Silence is the wit of fools.
A well-timed jest is like a well-aimed arrow.
He who speaks without thinking is like a city without walls.
The tongue is mightier than the sword.
In rhetoric, truth is not the goal, but persuasion.
The orator must be a master of probability.
Life is a shadow, and we are but players.
Wisdom comes with age, but age brings forgetfulness.
The art of persuasion is the art of deception.
To speak well is to think well.
The mind is everything; what you think, you become.
Eloquence is the child of liberty.
In the marketplace of ideas, the best seller wins.
Rhetoric is the shadow of justice.
The greatest glory is in not falling, but in rising when we fall.
Contemporaries of Gorgias
Other Philosophys born within 50 years of Gorgias (-483–-375).