The value of a quotation depends on two things, (1) the habit of accuracy in the person who quotes it, and (2) whether it is quoted from the original or from some intermediate source. Consequently the careful student of the early Greek philosophers, who depends wholly on quotations for his direct knowledge of these thinkers, cannot neglect the consideration of these two questions. Closely connected with the accuracy of quotations is the question as to the accuracy of later writers in the opinions which they have attributed to these thinkers. These topics I propose to consider very briefly, that the student may have at least some clue to guide him in his studies. I. § 1. We find in Plato[96] scarcely any quotations, since the literary character of the dialogue excludes anything that might seem pedantic. There are allusions to certain phrases of Herakleitos which had already become all but proverbs:—the Herakleitean sun, the harmony of opposites, ‘all in motion’ with the example of the river; and the comparison ‘god:man::man:ape’ is also given as the teaching of Herakleitos.[97] Similarly phrases of Anaxagoras are brought into the dialogues—‘all things were together,’ ‘νοῦς disposed all things,’[98] but they hardly deserve the name of quotations. Other allusions to his theory do not even suggest a quotation. The only real quotations are from Parmenides,[99] and in two of these passages the text as read by Simplicius was corrupt and unmetrical. Simplicius quotes the same passage at one time from Plato, at another time apparently from the original,[100] so that he enables us to correct the form of the quotation which he (or the writer from whom he drew) read in his MS. of Plato. Plato’s writings betray no particular interest in any of the pre-Sokratic thinkers except Parmenides and the Pythagorean school, nor do they convey any hint as to the value of the work of the other early thinkers. So it need not surprise us that he alludes to popular phrases and seems rather to avoid exact quotation.