Quotes About Heraclitus

#1. A drunk man, staggering and mindless, must be led home by his son, so wet is his psyche ... Water brings death to the psyche, as earth brings death to water ... The psyche lusts to be wet.

Heraclitus

#2. Greater dooms win greater destinies.

Heraclitus

#3. All is flux, nothing is stationary.

Heraclitus

#4. May you have plenty of wealth, you men of Ephesus, in order that you may be punished for your evil ways

Heraclitus

#5. Any day stands
equal to the rest.

Heraclitus

#6. Eyes and ears are bad witnesses to men having barbarian souls.

Heraclitus

#7. You will not discover the limits of the soul
by traveling, even if you wander over every
conceivable path, so deep is its story.

Heraclitus

#8. [Heraclitus had] the highest form of pride [stemming] from a certainty of belief in the truth as grasped by himself alone. He brings this form, by its excessive development, into a sublime pathos by involuntary identification of himself with his truth.

Friedrich Nietzsche

#9. One must realize that war is common, and justice strife, and that all things come to be through strife and are (so) ordained.

Heraclitus

#10. There is nothing peranent except change.

Heraclitus

#11. Stupidity is doomed,
therefore, to cringe
at every syllable
of wisdom.

Heraclitus

#12. Religion is a disease, but it is a noble disease.

Heraclitus

#13. To God all things are fair and good and right, but men hold some things wrong and some right.

Heraclitus

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

Heraclitus

#15. Justice will overtake fabricators of lies and false witnesses.

Heraclitus

#16. It is necessary to understand that war is common, strife is customary, and all things happen because of strife and necessity.

Heraclitus

#17. Those unmindful when they hear, for all they make of their intelligence, may be regarded as the walking dead.

Heraclitus

#18. Let us not make random conjectures about the greatest matters.

Heraclitus

#19. The waking have one world in common; sleepers have each a private world of his own.

Heraclitus

#20. Much learning does not teach understanding.

Heraclitus

#21. It was Heraclitus' ideas that seized Nietzsche so totally that he became completely mad.

Rajneesh

#22. The gods are immortal men, and men are mortal gods.

Heraclitus

#23. To do the same thing over and over again is not only boredom: it is to be controlled by rather than to control what you do.

Heraclitus

#24. Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow.
Nothing endures but change.

Heraclitus

#25. This universe, which is the same for all, has not been made by any god or man, but it always has been, is, and will be an ever-living fire, kindling itself by regular measures and going out by regular measures.

Heraclitus

#26. The nature of things is in the habit of concealing itself.

Heraclitus

#27. The best of men choose one thing in preference to all else, immortal glory in preference to mortal good; whereas the masses simply glut themselves like cattle.

Heraclitus

#28. Life has the name of life, but in reality it is death.

Heraclitus

#29. Life is a child moving counters in a game.

Heraclitus

#30. It is difficult to fight against anger; for a man will buy revenge with his soul.

Heraclitus

#31. It is harder to fight pleasure than to fight emotion.

Heraclitus

#32. Praise God (or whatever it is) from (if direction exists) whom (if personality exists) all blessings (if that word corresponds to any percept of objective reality) flow (if Heraclitus and Bergson and Einstein are correct in stating that everything is more or less flowing about).

Dorothy L. Sayers

#33. What sense or thought do they have? They follow the popular singers, and they take the crowd as their teacher.

Heraclitus

#34. All men have the capacity of knowing themselves and acting with moderation.

Heraclitus

#35. Nothing endures but change.

Heraclitus

#36. The lord whose is the oracle at Delphoi neither utters nor hides his meaning, but shows it by a sign.
The Sibyl, with raving lips uttering things mirthless, unbedizened, and unperfumed, reaches over a thousand years with her voice, thanks to the god in her.

Heraclitus

#37. If we do not expect the unexpected, we will never find it.

Heraclitus

#38. If you went in search of it, you would not find the boundaries of the soul, though you traveled every road-so deep is its measure [logos].

Heraclitus

#39. It is weariness to keep toiling at the same things so that one becomes ruled by them.

Heraclitus

#40. It is in changing that things find purpose.

Heraclitus

#41. [Heraclitus had] pride not in logical knowledge but rather in intuitive grasping of the truth.

Friedrich Nietzsche

#42. The eyes are more exact witnesses than the ears.

Heraclitus

#43. War is the father and king of all,

Heraclitus

#44. The world, an entity out of everything,
was created by none of the gods or men,
but was, is and will be eternally living
fire, regularly becoming ignited and reg-
ularly becoming extinguished ...

Heraclitus

#45. I am what libraries and librarians have made me, with little assistance from a professor of Greek and poets.

Heraclitus

#46. One ought not to act and speak like people asleep.

Heraclitus

#47. If, as Heraclitus suggests, god, like an oracle, neither "declares nor hides, but sets forth by signs," then clearly I had better be scrying the signs.

Annie Dillard

#48. The only constant is change.

Heraclitus

#49. Knowledge of divine things for the most part, as Heraclitus says, is lost to us by incredulity.

Plutarch

#50. Everything changes and nothing stands still.

Heraclitus

#51. Things of which there is sight, hearing, apprehension, these I prefer.

Heraclitus

#52. Corpses are more fit to be thrown out than is dung.

Heraclitus

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

Heraclitus

#54. People do not know how what is at variance agrees with itself. It is an attunement of opposite tensions, like that of the bow and the lyre.

Heraclitus

#55. The hidden harmony is better than the obvious.

Heraclitus

#56. They told me,Heraclitus,they told me
you are dead,
They brought me bitter news to hear
and bitter tears to shed ...
I wept when i remembered how often you and I
Had tired the sun with talking,and sent him down the sky.

Callimachus

#57. A hidden connection is stronger than an obvious one.

Heraclitus

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

Heraclitus

#59. The most beautiful ape is ugly when compared to a human. The wisest human will seem like an ape when compared to a god with respect to wisdom, beauty, and everything else.

Heraclitus

#60. Character is fate. (Destiny).

Heraclitus

#61. It is in changing that we find purpose.

Heraclitus

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

Heraclitus

#63. The universal cosmic process was not created by any god or man.

Heraclitus

#64. If you do not hope, you will not win that which is not hoped for, since it is unattainable and inaccessible.

Heraclitus

#65. The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the light of day. The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you do is who you become. Your integrity is your destiny - it is the light that guides your way.

Heraclitus

#66. The sun is new each day.

Heraclitus

#67. If it were not for injustice, men would not know justice.

Heraclitus

#68. If one does not expect the unexpected, one will not find it out, since it is not to be searched out, and difficut to compass.

Heraclitus

#69. There is a stability in the Universe because of the orderly and balanced process of change, the same measure coming out as going in, as if reality were a huge fire that inhaled and exhaled equal amounts.

Heraclitus

#70. We are most nearly ourselves when we achieve the seriousness of the child at play.

Heraclitus

#71. The Only Thing That Is Constant Is Change -

Heraclitus

#72. The sun is new every day. (Fragment 6)

Heraclitus

#73. I have been in love with the thought of Heraclitus.

Rajneesh

#74. Those who love wisdom must investigate many things

Heraclitus

#75. It is better to conceal ignorance than to expose it.

Heraclitus

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

Heraclitus

#77. To God all things are beautiful and good and just.

Heraclitus

#78. The world is nothing but a great desire to live and a great dissatisfaction with living.

Heraclitus

#79. Where there is no strife there is decay: 'The mixture which is not shaken decomposes.'

Heraclitus

#80. The people should fight for the law as for their city wall.

Heraclitus

#81. What we have caught and what we have killed we have left behind, but what has escaped us we bring with us.

Heraclitus

#82. Deliberate violence is more to be quenched than a fire.

Heraclitus

#83. The awake share a common world, but the asleep turn aside into private worlds.

Heraclitus

#84. The kosmos works by harmony of tensions, like lyre and bow. Good and evil are one. On the one hand God sees all as well, fair, and good; on the other hand a human being sees injustice here, justice there. Justice in our minds is strife. We cannot help but see war makes us as we are.

Heraclitus

#85. The best people renounce all for one goal, the eternal fame of mortals; but most people stuff themselves like cattle.

Heraclitus

#86. Of all whose words I have heard, no one attains to this, to know that wisdom is apart from all.

Heraclitus

#87. When is death not within ourselves? ... Living and dead are the same, and so are awake and alseep, young and old.

Heraclitus

#88. Man is on earth as in an egg.

Heraclitus

#89. Nature is wont to hide herself.

Heraclitus

#90. [Heraclitus had] a regal air of certainty.

Friedrich Nietzsche

#91. Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony.

Heraclitus

#92. War is the father and king of all: some he has made gods, and some men; some slaves and some free.

Heraclitus

#93. All things flow, nothing abides. You cannot step into the same river twice, for the waters are continually flowing on. Nothing is permanent except change.

Heraclitus

#94. Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.

Heraclitus

#95. It is wise to listen, not to me but to the Word, and to confess that all things are one.

Heraclitus

#96. Day by day, what you do is who you become.

Heraclitus

#97. Even what those with the greatest reputation for knowing it all claim to understand and defend are but opinions.

Heraclitus

#98. Everything flows, nothing stays still.

Heraclitus

#99. Men that love wisdom must be acquainted with very many things indeed.

Heraclitus

#100. We must realize that war is universal and strife is justice, and that all things come into the world and pass away through strife.

Heraclitus