Hypatia (born c. 350–370; died 415) was a Hellenistic Neoplatonist philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician, who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, then part of the Eastern Roman Empire. She was a prominent thinker of the Neoplatonic school in Alexandria where she taught philosophy and astronomy.
She is the first female mathematician whose life is reasonably well recorded. Hypatia was renowned in her own lifetime as a great teacher and a wise counselor.
Hypatia remains a widely accepted feminist symbol, and has inspired countless works of literature, visual art, and film.
Hypatia's Quotes:
- “Life is an unfoldment, and the further we travel the more truth we can comprehend. To understand the things that are at our door is the best preparation for understanding those that lie beyond.”
- “Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.”
- “Fables should be taught as fables, myths as myths, and miracles as poetic fantasies.”
- “To teach superstitions as truths is a most terrible thing. The child mind accepts and believes them, and only through great pain and perhaps tragedy can he be in after years relieved of them.”
- “In fact men will fight for a superstition quite as quickly as for a living truth - often more so, since a superstition is so intangible you cannot get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so is changeable.”
- “All formal dogmatic religions are fallacious and must never be accepted by self-respecting persons as final.”
- “To rule by fettering the mind through fear of punishment in another world, is just as base as to use force... Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.”
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