What is Meaning of this Quotation by Anicent Greek Philosopher ?
The important thing about the context of this quote is that the writer was not talking about mundane, everyday truth, like “the sun is hot” or “coins are coin-shaped”, but rather a kind of philosophical Truth, kind of like the heart of an onion when you peel the layers away: hidden from reality and unknowable to mere mortals; Truth in it’s essential, sublime purity is the domain of the Gods. Nietzsche expanded on this in his writings about the Dionysiac and the Apollonian, saying (and I can only paraphrase) “if a person were to catch even a glimpse of pure Truth, they would go insane because it is too powerful for mortal minds to comprehend”. So even if a human were to say something that approaches essential Truth, they would not understand it and would not be able to comprehend it. The Greek tragedies are full of moments of people glimpsing the essence of Truth and going mad from it: Oedipus, for example, had the surfaces and layers of his life stripped away in an instant when he saw
