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Misshapen Creatures that Live in the Earth Can Give Us Sage Advice?
Well, no. But don’t fear the gnome
The first philosophical event in the Greek world, the selection of their seven sages, gives the first distinctive and unforgettable characteristic of Greek civilization. Other people have saints, while the Greeks have philosophers. They are right when some state that a people is not defined by its great men it has but by the way it recognizes and honors them.
Friedrich Nietzsche
When you hear “gnome,” you probably think of a scary little creature.
That’s because of the Rosicrucians, a 17th-century mystical movement in Europe that said gnomes are little misshapen creatures that live in the bowels of the earth.
But well before the Rosicrucians, the word “gnome” meant something different. It meant a short statement that expresses a general truth, like a proverb or maxim.
There were seven men in ancient Greece who were well-known for the particularly-insightful gnomes attributed to them. These men were…
