Pythagorean
Πυθαγόρας
c. 570 – c. 495 BCE · Samos; later Croton, Italy
Pythagoras founded a community at Croton devoted to mathematics, music and a disciplined way of life. He wrote nothing that survives, and much attributed to him comes from later followers, so his own views are hard to separate from the tradition named after him.
A later Pythagorean poem advises: never do anything shameful, whether with others or alone, and above all respect yourself.
Golden Verses (Carmen Aureum), lines 10–12
Paraphrase and reference awaiting verification against the source.
Composed by later Pythagoreans, not by Pythagoras himself.
A later Pythagorean poem advises not to let sleep close your eyes before you have reviewed each of the day's deeds three times: where did I go wrong, what did I do, what duty did I leave undone?
Golden Verses (Carmen Aureum), lines 40–44
The Golden Verses were composed by later Pythagoreans, not by Pythagoras himself; presented as the tradition's teaching.
Aristotle reports that the Pythagoreans, seeing that musical harmonies could be expressed in numerical ratios, came to think the principles of number were the principles of all things, and the whole heaven a harmony and a number.
Aristotle, Metaphysics, I.5, 985b23–986a3
A report about the Pythagoreans by Aristotle, not words of Pythagoras.
Pythagoras reportedly compared life to a festival: some come to compete for glory, some to trade for gain, but the best come as spectators, and so too philosophers seek truth.
Diogenes Laertius, Lives, VIII.8 (cf. Cicero, Tusculan Disputations V.3.8–9)
Paraphrase and reference awaiting verification against the source.
A late report; attribution to Pythagoras himself is uncertain.
Pythagoras is said to have taught that friends have all things in common, and that friendship is equality.
Diogenes Laertius, Lives, VIII.10
Paraphrase and reference awaiting verification against the source.
Late report about the Pythagorean community.
Pythagorean (6th c. BCE onward). A community that joined mathematics, music and a disciplined way of life, seeing order and harmony as the structure of the cosmos and the soul.