20 Facts About Democritus

Democritus was known in antiquity as the 'laughing philosopher' because of his emphasis on the value of cheerfulness.

Democritus was born in Abdera, on the coast of Thrace.

Democritus was a polymath and prolific writer, producing nearly eighty treatises on subjects such as poetry, harmony, military tactics, and Babylonian theology.

Democritus traveled extensively, visiting Egypt and Persia, but was not particularly impressed by these countries.

Democritus once remarked that he would rather uncover a single scientific explanation than become the king of Persia.

Democritus concluded that divisibility of matter comes to an end, and the smallest possible fragments must be bodies with sizes and shapes, although the exact argument for this conclusion of his is not known.

Atoms, Democritus believed, are too small to be detected by the senses; they are infinite in numbers and come in infinitely many varieties, and they have existed forever and that these atoms are in constant motion in the void or vacuum.

Democritus surmised that there are many worlds, some growing, some decaying; some with no sun or moon, some with several.

Democritus held that every world has a beginning and an end and that a world could be destroyed by collision with another world.

Democritus was a pioneer of mathematics and geometry in particular.

Democritus thought that the first humans lived an anarchic and animal sort of life, foraging individually and living off the most palatable herbs and the fruit which grew wild on the trees, until fear of wild animals drove them together into societies.

Democritus believed that these early people had no language, but that they gradually began to articulate their expressions, establishing symbols for every sort of object, and in this manner came to understand each other.

Democritus says that the earliest men lived laboriously, having none of the utilities of life; clothing, houses, fire, domestication, and farming were unknown to them.

The ethics and politics of Democritus come to us mostly in the form of maxims.

Democritus wrote a treatise on the purpose of life and the nature of happiness.

Democritus held that "happiness was not to be found in riches but in the goods of the soul and one should not take pleasure in mortal things".

Democritus stated that "the cause of sin is ignorance of what is better", which become a central notion later in the Socratic moral thought.

Later Greek historians consider Democritus to have established aesthetics as a subject of investigation and study, as he wrote theoretically on poetry and fine art long before authors such as Aristotle.

Democritus was nevertheless well known to his fellow northern-born philosopher Aristotle, and was the teacher of Protagoras.

Democritus is evoked by English writer Samuel Johnson in his poem, The Vanity of Human Wishes, ll.