Appearances are a glimpse of the unseen.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that what we see is only a small part of a larger reality that is not immediately visible.
Anaxagoras' quote emphasizes the idea that our perceptions and appearances are limited and do not encompass the entirety of truth or reality. It invites us to look beyond superficial observations to understand the deeper, often hidden aspects of existence, encouraging a thoughtful examination of the world around us.
In practice
In a discussion about human nature, one might use this quote to illustrate the complexity of people's inner lives.
The Greeks are wrong to recognize coming into being and perishing; for nothing comes into being nor perishes, but is rather compounded or dissolved from things that are. So they would be right to call coming into being composition and perishing dissolution.
It is not I who have lost the Athenians, but the Athenians who have lost me.
Men would live exceedingly quiet if these two words, mine and thine, were taken away.
Everything has a natural explanation. The moon is not a god but a great rock and the sun a hot rock.
And since the portions of the great and the small are equal in number, so too all things would be in everything. Nor is it possible that they should exist apart, but all things have a portion of everything.
The descent into Hades is much the same from whatever place we start.
There are two ways of seeing: with the body and with the soul. The body's sight can sometimes forget, but the soul remembers forever.
Everyone carries a piece of the puzzle. Nobody comes into your life by mere coincidence. Trust your instincts. Do the unexpected. Find the others.
Now this foreknowledge cannot be elicited from spirits; it cannot be obtained inductively from experience, nor by any deductive calculation.
Make women rational creatures, and free citizens, and they will quickly become good wives; - that is, if men do not neglect the duties of husbands and fathers.
That one plant should be sown and another be produced cannot happen; whatever seed is sown, a plant of that kind even comes forth.
The Federal Constitution forms a happy combination in this respect; the great and aggregate interests being referred to the national, the local and particular, to the state legislatures.
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