28 Heraclitus Quotes on Philosophy

Heraclitus quotes on philosophy

1. Nothing endures but change.

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

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

6. Nature is wont to hide herself.

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.

21. Character is destiny.

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

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

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

30. It is in changing that things find purpose.

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.

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

42. The most perfect mind is a dry light.

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

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.'