“Abstain from beans.” — Pythagoras of Samos
Pythagoras has a reputation as having been a somewhat odd dude. Perhaps a charlatan, perhaps a thaumaturge. One thing that many sources say is that he urged his followers to abstain from beans. About a thousand years ago when I was in school, it was explained to me that he did this because the Ancients believed that beans gathered spirits of the dead, and this is why they created gas, because the spirit was the breath.
A much more interesting explanation I ran across much later was that voting was done with beans, so by saying “Abstain from beans,” what Pythagoras meant was, “Stay away from politics.” Well, who could argue with that?
Published in HistoryThanks for reading Quote of the Day: Pythagoras on Beans. Please share...!
0 Comment for "Quote of the Day: Pythagoras on Beans"