Be silent or let thy words be worth more than silence

How many times have we heard someone speak who with better wisdom really shouldn’t be speaking on a topic. It’s fine to offer opinions or question information, but this quote by the great Patharogas of Samos reminds us to research our topic and truly understand the context in which we are using it.

Be silent or let thy words be worth more than silence

Pythagoras of Samos (570 BC – 495 BC)

Pythagoras of Samos was an ancient Ionian Greek philosopher and the founder of Pythagoreanism. His political and religious teachings were well known in Magna Graecia and influenced the philosophies of Plato, Aristotle, and, through them, the West in general. Knowledge of his life is clouded by legend, but he appears to have been the son of Mnesarchus, a gem-engraver on the island of Samos.

What do Pythagoreans believe?

Pythagoreans believed that everything could be reduced to numbers: the whole universe had been built using mathematics. They said the truth behind the everyday reality we experience lies in numbers. Modern physicists seeking the ‘theory of everything’ or the ‘grand unification’ are Pythagoreans.

The Pythagorean theorem

As those of us who took geometry in high school may remember the famous theorem eponymous with Pythagoras. The Pythagorean theorem is a well-known geometric theorem that simply states that the sum of the squares on the legs of a right triangle is equal to the square on the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle)—or, in familiar algebraic notation, a2 + b2 = c2.