For before this I was born once a boy, and a maiden, and a plant, and a bird, and a darting fish in the sea.
EmpedoclesThe force that unites the elements to become all things is Love, also called Aphrodite; Love brings together dissimilar elements into a unity, to become a composite thing. Love is the same force that human beings find at work in themselves whenever they feel joy, love and peace. Strife, on the other hand, is the force responsible for the dissolution of the one back into its many, the four elements of which it was composed.
Empedocles