Heraclitus Quotes

Heraclitus of Ephesos, painting from the 17th century by Johannes Moreelse.(Public Domain)

Heraclitus was a Greek Philosopher lived between 535 BC — 475 BC in the Ephesus Ancient City, today in Izmir-Turkey. One of the Pre-Socratic Philosophers. According to Nietzsche, The World needs the right thing, other words The World needs the Heraclitus.

His Quotes

• No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.
• Time is a game played beautifully by children.
• The Only Thing That Is Constant Is Change.
• Nothing endures but change.
• Much learning does not teach understanding.
• Man’s character is his fate.
• Whoever cannot seek the unforeseen sees nothing for the known way is an impasse.
• We are most nearly ourselves when we achieve the seriousness of the child at play.
• How can you hide from what never goes away?
• Wisdom is the oneness of mind that guides and permeates all things.
• It is in changing that we find purpose.
• Abundance of knowledge does not teach men to be wise.
• Character is destiny.
• The unlike is joined together, and from differences results the most beautiful harmony.
• Those who love wisdom must investigate many things.
• The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts.
• The sun is new each day.
• Silence, healing.
• 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.
• Thinking is a sacred disease and sight is deceptive.
• All are one.
• The awake share a common world, but the asleep turn aside into private worlds.
• Mortals are immortals and immortals are mortals, the one living the others’ death and dying the others’ life.
• Life has the name of life, but in reality it is death.
• The road up and the road down is one and the same.
• What are men? Mortal gods. What are gods? Immortal men.
• All things come into being by conflict of opposites.
• The waking have one world in common; sleepers have each a private world of his own.
• Dog bark at what they don’t understand.
• Eyes and ears are bad witnesses to men having barbarian souls.
• Fire lives in the death of earth, air lives in the death of fire, water lives in the death of air, and earth in the death of water.
• Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
• 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.
• All is flux.
• Time is a child playing with droughts. The lordship is to the child.
• War is father of all, and king of all. He renders some gods, others men; he makes some slaves, others free.
• Give me one man from among ten thousand if he is the best.
• No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river, and it’s not the same man.
• Nature loves to hide.
• Thinking is a sacred disease, and sight is deceptive.
• Realize that war is common and justice is strife, and that all things come into being and pass away through strife.
• 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.
• It is not appropriate to act and speak like men asleep.
• The people must fight on behalf of the law as though for the city wall.
• A fool is excited by every word.
• To God all things are fair and good and right, but men hold some things wrong and some right.
• Uncelebrated life is like a long innless road.
• Because it is so unbelievable, the truth often escapes being known.
• Change alone is unchanging.
• If they are gods, why do you lament them? If you lament them, you must no longer regard them as gods.
• Thinking is common to all.
• It is better to conceal ignorance.
• All is war.
• Change is the only constant.
• For souls it is death to become water, and for water death to become earth. Water comes into existence out of earth, and soul out of water.
• The unseen harmony is better than the visible.
• Big results require big ambitions.
• Eyes are more accurate witnesses than ears.
• Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.
• Wisdom consists in speaking and acting the truth.
• Nothing is, everything is becoming.
• Religion is a disease, but it is a noble disease.
• Knowledge is not intelligence.
• War is the mother of everything.
• If we do not expect the unexpected, we will never find it.
• If it were not for injustice, men would not know justice.
• Doctors cut, burn, and torture the sick, and then demand of them an undeserved fee for such services.
• 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.
• It is harder to fight pleasure than to fight emotion.
• The Cosmos was not made by gods but always was and is eternal fire.
• The universal cosmic process was not created by any god or man.
• I am what libraries and librarians have made me, with little assistance from a professor of Greek and poets.
• May you have plenty of wealth, you men of Ephesus, in order that you may be punished for your evil ways.
• Deliberate violence is more to be quenched than a fire.
• All human laws are nourished by one divine law.
• Man, like a light in the night, is kindled and put out.