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If cows and horses or lions had hands, or could draw with their hands and make things as… — Xenophanes

Presocratic fragment · Fragment · Philosophical literature

If cows and horses or lions had hands, or could draw with their hands and make things as men can, horses would have drawn horse-like gods, cows cow-like gods, and each species would have made the gods' bodies just like their own.

Xenophanes
★ 6.9
Provenance
Current citation
Xenophanes. "Xenophanes of Colophon." The First Philosophers: The Presocratics and Sophists. Oxford World Classics, 2009, DK21 B15.
Original citation
Xenophanes. Fragments. 5th century BC, DK21 B15.

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