Democritus meditating on the seat of the soul (Démocrite méditant sur le siège de l'âme) is a statue by Léon-Alexandre Delhomme (1841–1895), exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1868. It shows the Greek philosopher Democritus, his eyes fixed on a skull he holds in his hands. It is now exhibited in the garden of the musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon.
On its base is inscribed an extract from the 29th fable of La Fontaine:
- "Hippocrates in time arrived at the conclusion that he had not sought whether the heart or the head was the seat of either reason or sense in man and beast"
Famous quotes containing the words meditating, seat and/or soul:
“With meditating that she must die once,
I have the patience to endure it now.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The chief element in the art of statesmanship under modern conditions is the ability to elucidate the confused and clamorous interests which converge upon the seat of government. It is an ability to penetrate from the naïve self-interest of each group to its permanent and real interest.... Statesmanship ... consists in giving the people not what they want but what they will learn to want.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“For what we call illusions are often, in truth, a wider vision of past and present realities—a willing movement of a man’s soul with the larger sweep of the world’s forces—a movement towards a more assured end than the chances of a single life.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)