Heraclitus Quotes

53 Sourced Quotes

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

Heraclitus
He who does not expect will not find out the unexpected, for it is trackless and unexplored

Heraclitus
For souls it is death to become water, for water death to become earth; from earth arises water, and from water soul.

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

Heraclitus
People ought to fight to keep their law as to defend the city s walls.

Heraclitus
For those who are awake there is one common universe.

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

Heraclitus
Under the comb, the tangle and the straight path are the same.

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

Heraclitus
The real constitution of things is accustomed to hide itself.

Heraclitus
Time is like a river flowing endlessly through the universe.

Heraclitus
The river where you set your foot just now is gone-those waters give way to this, now this.

Heraclitus
Humans are tricked in the understanding of what they see.

Heraclitus
Eyes and ears are bad witnesses for men who have barbarian souls.
Variant translation: Eyes and ears are bad witnesses for those who have souls that do not understand the language.

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

Heraclitus
The opposite is beneficial; from things that differ comes the fairest attunement; all things are born through strife.

Heraclitus
Having come to birth they want to live and have their fates, and they leave children behind to become their fates.

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

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

Heraclitus
To god all things are beautiful and good and just, but people have supposed some to be unjust, others just.

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

Heraclitus
When men have died there awaits them what they neither expected nor imagined.

Heraclitus
You could not in your going find the limits of soul though you traveled the whole way - so deep is its logos.
Heraclitus defines 'logos' as a term for a principle of order and knowledge

Heraclitus
Unite whole and part, agreement and disagreement, accordant and discordant; from all comes one, and from one all.

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

Heraclitus