“Philosophy, the pursuit of wisdom, has had a twofold origin; it started with Anaximander on the one hand, with Pythagoras on the other. The former was a pupil of Thales, Pythagoras was taught by Pherecydes. The one school was called Ionian, because Thales, a Milesian and therefore an Ionian, instructed Anaximander; the other school was called Italian from Pythagoras, who worked for the most part in Italy. And the one school, that of Ionia, terminates with Clitomachus and Chrysippus and Theophrastus, that of Italy with Epicurus. The succession passes from Thales through Anaximander, Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, Archelaus, to Socrates, who introduced ethics or moral philosophy; from Socrates to his pupils the Socratics, and especially to Plato, the founder of the Old Academy; from Plato, through Speusippus and Xenocrates, the succession passes to Polemo, Crantor, and Crates, Arcesilaus, founder of the Middle Academy, Lacydes, founder of the New Academy, Carneades, and Clitomachus. This line brings us to Clitomachus. There is another which ends with Chrysippus, that is to say by passing from Socrates to Antisthenes, then to Diogenes the Cynic, Crates of Thebes, Zeno of Citium, Cleanthes, Chrysippus. And yet again another ends with Theophrastus; thus from Plato it passes to Aristotle, and from Aristotle to Theophrastus. In this manner the school of Ionia comes to an end. In the Italian school the order of succession is as follows: first Pherecydes, next Pythagoras, next his son Telauges, then Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno of Elea, Leucippus, Democritus, who had many pupils, in particular Nausiphanes [and Naucydes], who were teachers of Epicurus.”

— Diogenes Laertius (c.230), The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (1:13-15) (Ѻ)

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“Cicero said the opinion about the immortality of the soul was first introduced by Pherecydes of Syros in the time of King Tullus (others attribute it to Thales, others to others). It is the part of the human science that is treated with the most reservation and doubt. The firmest dogmatists are forced to take cover in the shadow of the academy. No one knows what Aristotle taught about the subject (or even all of the ancients in general who handle it with unsteady belief) and he left it to his successors to battle it out about his opinion on the matter. It is marvelous how those who are stubborn in this opinion about the immortality of our souls come up short and are powerless to establish it by their human powers. They are the dreams of a man who teaches nothing, but is hopeful. As Cicero said: ‘dreams are not of a teacher, but of the wisher’ (somnia sunt non docentus, sed optantis) (Academia, 2:38).”

— Michel Montaigne (c.1590), Essays (§2:12); cited by Jean Meslier (1729) in The Testament (pg. 570) [2]

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“Man, feeling within himself a concealed force that insensibly produced action, that imperceptibly gave direction to the motion of his machine, believed that the entire of nature, of whose energies he is ignorant, with whose modes of acting he is unacquainted, owed its motion to an agent analogous to his own soul, who acted upon the great macrocosm in the same manner that this soul acted upon his body. Man having supposed himself double, made nature double also: he distinguished her from her own peculiar energy; he separated her from her mover, which by degrees he made spiritual. Thus this being distinguished from nature was regarded as the soul of the world, and the soul of man was considered as portions emanating from this universal soul. This notion upon the origin of the soul, is of very remote antiquity. It was that of the Egyptians, of the Chaldeans, of the Hebrews, of the greater number of the wise men of the east. It was in these schools that Pherecydes, Pythagoras, Plato, drew up a doctrine so flattering to the vanity of human nature—so gratifying to the imagination of mortals.”

— Baron d’Holbach (1770), The System of Nature (pg. 117)

“Pherecydes the philosopher, who should be distinguished Pythagoras, from the Athenian historian of the same name, was either a native of Scyros, or, according to some authorities, of Syria or Assyria; and he was the tutor of Pythagoras in the sixth century BC. Suidas, Philo of Byblus, Clemens of Alexandria, Hesychius of Milet, Eustathius, and Cicero, agree in stating that he acquired his philosophy in Phoenicia; and Cedrenus adds, that, like Thales and Pythagoras, he visited Egypt and Chaldea in pursuit of knowledge. According to Theopompus, Pherecydes was the first among the Greeks who wrote on the nature of the gods. He also wrote a work on cosmogony, intitled [Greek], which contains the Chaldean theories on and his ether, the earth, time, and the four elements. Galen assigns to this author the work De salubre virtus rationis, which is commonly printed with the works of Hippocrates; and if this be correct, it would clearly prove that medicine has an oriental origin.”

— Francis Chesney (1850), The Expedition for the Survey of the Rivers Euphrates and Tigris (pg. 520)