75 Heraclitus Quotes

Heraclitus quotes

1. Nothing endures but change.

2. Eternity is a child playing, playing checkers; the kingdom belongs to a child.

3. It is harder to fight pleasure than to to fight emotion.

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

5. Though wisdom is common, yet the many live as if they had a wisdom of their own.

6. Nature is wont to hide herself.

7. Much learning does not teach understanding.

8. 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.

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

10. You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you.

11. It would not be better if things happened to people just as they wish.

12. Couples are wholes and not wholes, what agrees disagrees, the concordant is discordant. From all things one and from one all things.

13. The road up and the road down is one and the same.

14. Man, like a light in the night, is kindled and put out.

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

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

17. Even sleepers are workers and collaborators on what goes on in the universe.

18. Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony.

19. The people should fight for their law as if defending the city's wall.

20. It is better to hide ignorance, but it is hard to do this when we relax over wine.

21. Character is destiny.

22. A hidden connection is stronger than an obvious one.

23. Abundance of knowledge does not teach men to be wise.

24. Big results require big ambitions.

25. Deliberate violence is more to be quenched than a fire.

26. Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day. Protracted and patient effort is needed to develop good character.

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

28. If you do not expect the unexpected, you will not find it; for it is hard to be sought out, and difficult.

29. Immortal mortals, mortal immortals, one living the others death and dying the others life.

30. It is in changing that things find purpose.

31. Justice will overtake fabricators of lies and false witnesses.

32. Men who are lovers of wisdom must be inquirers into many things.

33. No one that encounters prosperity does not also encounter danger.

34. One must know that war is common, justice is strife, and everything happens according to strife and necessity.

35. One must talk about everything according to its nature, how it comes to be and how it grows. Men have talked about the world without paying attention to the world of their own minds, as if they were asleep or absent-minded.

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

37. Poor witnesses for men are their eyes and ears if they have barbarian souls.

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

39. The eyes are more exact witnesses than the ears.

40. The Lord whose oracle is at Delphi neither reveals nor conceals, but gives a sign.

41. 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.

42. The most perfect mind is a dry light.

43. The phases of fire are craving and satiety.

44. 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.

45. The sun is new each day.

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

47. There is exchange of all things for fire and of fire for all things, as there is of wares for gold and of gold for wares.

48. 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.

49. To God everything is beautiful, good, and just; humans, however, think some things are unjust and others just.

50. Uncomprehending when they have heard, they are like the deaf. The saying describes them: though present they are absent.

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

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

53. Where there is no strife there is decay: The mixture which is not shaken decomposes.

54. Wisdom is one thing - to know how to make true judgment, how all things are steered through all things.

55. All men are deceived by the appearances of things, even Homer himself, who was the wisest man in Greece; for he was deceived by boys catching lice, they said to him, 'What we have caught and what we have killed we have left behind, but what has escaped us we bring with us.'

1. History is a child building a sand-castle by the sea, and that child is the whole majesty of man's power in the world.

2. “History is a child building a sandcastle by the sea, and that child is the whole majesty of man's power in the world.”

3. Dogs, also, bark at what they do not know.

4. The fairest harmony springs from discord.

5. Presumption must be quenched even more than a fire.

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

7. The Cosmos was not made by gods but always was and is eternal fire.

8. We do not step in the same river twice, for the waters have moved on and we too have changed.

9. War is the father of all things.

10. The fairest order in the world is a heap of random sweepings.

11. The seeing have the world in common.

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

13. For when is death not within our selves? And as Heracleitus says: “Living and dead are the same, and so are awake and asleep, young and old. The former when shifted are the latter, and again the latter when shifted are the former."

14. He who hears not me but the logos will say: All is one.

15. All things come into being by conflict of opposites.

16. Day by day, what you do is who you become.

17. The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you choose, what you think and what you do is who you become.

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

19. Of the Logos which is as I describe it men always prove to be uncomprehending, both before they have heard it and when once they have heard it. For although all things happen according to this Logos, they [men] are like people of no experience, even when they experience such words and deeds as I explain, when I distinguish each thing according to its constitution and declare how it is; but the rest of men fail to notice what they do after they wake up just as they forget what they do when asleep.

20. How can you hide from what never goes away?