Democritus, Fragment 34, cited in Plutarch, Do Desire and Distress Belong to the Body or the Soul?, The Atomists, C. Taylor, trans. (1999)
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If the body brought a suit against the soul for all the sufferings and ills it had endured throughout its whole life, and one had to judge the case oneself, one would readily condemn the soul for having ruined certain features of the body through carelessness and made it soft through drink and brought it to rack and ruin through love of pleasure, just as if a tool or a utensil were in a bad state one would blame the person who used it carelessly.

— Democritus on Intemperance

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "If the body brought a suit against the soul for all the sufferings and ills it had endured throughout its whole life, and one had to judge the case oneself, one would readily condemn the soul for having ruined certain features of the body through carelessness and made it soft through drink and brought it to rack and ruin through love of pleasure, just as if a tool or a utensil were in a bad state one would blame the person who used it carelessly." in the context of "Democritus, Fragment 34, cited in Plutarch, Do Desire and Distress Belong to the Body or the Soul?, The Atomists, C. Taylor, trans. (1999)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "Intemperance" (Quotes) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Democritus

About Democritus

Democritus (c. 460 BC – c. 370 BC) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. He is popularly known as "the laughing philosopher" for advocating a cheerful outlook, and for his rhetorical use of irony and ridicule. A pupil of Leucippus, he was an influential pre-Socratic philosopher who formulated an atomic theory of the universe. Of his voluminous writings, only a few fragments of his ethical theory remain, with descriptions by other writers of his atomic theory.