Xenophanes Quotes

Xenophanes offers a thoughtful, ancient take on gods and humanity.

15 quotes

1. Men create the gods in their own image.

2. Mortals deem that the gods are begotten as they are, and have clothes like theirs, and voice and form.

3. 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 sculpture like men, then the horses would draw their gods Like horses, and cattle like cattle; and each they would shape Bodies of gods in the likeness, each kind, of their own.

4. Homer and Hesiod attributed to the gods all things which are disreputable and worthy of blame when done by men; and they told of them many lawless deeds, stealing, adultery, and deception of each other.

5. If oxen and lions had hands and could paint with their hands and produce works of art, as men do, horses would paint the forms of the gods likes horses and oxen like oxen. Each would represent them with bodies according to the bodies of each. So the Ethiopians make their gods black and snub-nosed; the Thracians give theirs red hair and blue eyes.

6. The sun comes into being each day from little pieces of fire that are collected.

7. No human being will ever know the Truth, for even if they happen to say it by chance, they would not even known they had done so.

8. If cows and horses had hands and could draw, cows would draw gods that look like cows and horses would draw gods that look like horses.

9. There is one god, greatest among gods and men, who bears no similarity to humans either in shape or thought... but humans believe that the gods are born like themselves, and that the gods wear clothes and have bodies like humans and speak in the same way... but if cows and horses or lions had hands or could draw with the hands and manufacture the things humans can make, then horses would draw the forms of gods like horses, cows like cows, and they would make the gods' bodies resemble those which each kind of animal had itself.

10. In the beginning the gods did not at all reveal all things clearly to mortals, but by searching men in the course of time find them out better.

11. Men always makes gods in their own image.

12. But if cattle and horses or lions had hands, or were able to draw with their hands and do the work that men can do, horses would draw the forms of the gods like horses, and cattle like cattle, and they would make their bodies such as they each had themselves.

13. Truly the gods have not from the beginning revealed all things to mortals, but by long seeking, mortals discover what is better.

14. All men begin their learning with Homer.

15. But without effort [God] sets in motion all things by mind and thought.