Actions Quotes Logo

Heraclitus Quotes

Much learning does not teach understanding.

Unless you expect the unexpected, you will not find it, for it is hidden and thickly tangled.

Allow yourself to think only those thoughts that match your principles and can bear the bright light...

Show More

People do not know how what is at variance agrees with itself. It is an attunement of opposite tensi...

Show More

The Aeon is a child at play with colored balls.(translation/paraphrase: Terence McKenna)

There is nothing permanent except change.

The kosmos works by harmony of tensions, like lyre and bow. Good and evil are one. On the one hand G...

Show More

Because it is so unbelievable, the truth often escapes being known.

Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.

Nature is wont to hide herself.

Many who have learnedfrom Hesiod the countless namesof gods and monstersnever understandthat night a...

Show More

Give me one manfrom among ten thousandif he is the best

War is father of all, and king of all. He renders some gods, others men; he makes some slaves, other...

Show More

Even a soul submerged in sleep is hard at work and helps make something of the world.

Always having what we wantmay not be the best good fortuneHealth seems sweetestafter sickness, foodi...

Show More

Whoever cannot seek the unforeseen sees nothing for the known way is an impasse.

To be evenminded is the greatest virtue.Wisdom is to speakthe truth and actin keeping with its natur...

Show More

One thunderbolt strikesroot through everything

Fragments

All is flux

The Fragments of the Work of Heraclitus of Ephesus on Nature with an Introduction Historical and Critical

Stupidity is doomed,therefore, to cringeat every syllableof wisdom.

Applicants for wisdomdo what I have done:inquire within

Aion is a child at play, playing draughts; the kingship is a child's.

One must realize that war is common, and justice strife, and that all things come to be through stri...

Show More

People ought to fight to keep their law as to defend the citys walls.

Time is a game played beautifully by children.

The chain of wedlock is so heavy that it takes two to carry it - and sometimes three.

You cannot step into the same river twice.

You cannot step twice into the same river for other waters are continually flowing on.

Other men are unaware of what they do when they are awake just as they are forgetful of what they do...

Show More

Everything flows nothing stays still.

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.

The unlike is joined together, and from differences results the most beautiful harmony.

You can't step into the same river twice.

Any day stands equal to the rest.

Change alone is unchanging.

Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day. Protr...

Show More

It is in changing that things find purpose.

If you do not expect it you will not find the unexpected for it is hard to find and difficult.

The sun is new each day.

All things flow nothing abides.

Wisdom is the oneness of mind that guides and permeates all things.

Nothing is permanent but change.

Men forget where the way leads and what they meet with every day seems strange to them.We should not...

Show More

God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, surfeit and hunger.

If they are gods, why do you lament them? If you lament them, you must no longer regard them as gods...

Show More

Related Authors

Picture of Heraclitus

Heraclitus

Philosopher

Born: 0535-01-01 BC

Died: 0475-01-01 BC

Heraclitus of Ephesus (Ἡράκλειτος, Herakleitos; c. 535 BC – 475 BC) was a Greek philosopher, known for his doctrine of change being central to the universe, and for establishing the term Logos (λόγος) in Western philosophy as meaning both the source and fundamental order of the Cosmos.More