Thales of Miletus
Personalities / Thales of Miletus Quotes / By person / Thales Quotes Thales of Miletus (c. 624 - 546 B.C.) was an early Pre-Socratic philosopher, mathematician and astronomer from the Greek city of Miletus in Ionia (modern-day Turkey). He was one of the so-called Seven Sages of Greece, and many regard him as the first philosopher in the Western tradition. He was the founder of the Milesian School of natural philosophy, and the teacher of Anaximander. He was perhaps the first subscriber to Materialist and Naturalism in trying to define the substance or substances of which all material objects were composed, which he identified as water. His innovative search for a universality in the disciplines of mathematics, astronomy and philosophy have earned him the label the "first scientist". Life Thales (pronounced THAY-lees) was born in the Greek city of Miletus (on the Ionian coast of modern-day Turkey) in about 624 or 625 B.C. (an estimate based on his ag...