Those who hear and do not understand are like the deaf. Of them the proverb says: "Present, they are absent."
HeraclitusThe waking have one common world, but the sleeping turn aside each into a world of his own
HeraclitusAll things flow, nothing abides. You cannot step into the same river twice, for the waters are continually flowing on. Nothing is permanent except change.
HeraclitusI see nothing but Becoming. Be not deceived! It is the fault of your limited outlook and not the fault of the essence of things if you believe that you see firm land anywhere in the ocean of Becoming and Passing. You need names for things, just as if they had a rigid permanence, but the very river in which you bathe a second time is no longer the same one which you entered before
HeraclitusA drunk man, staggering and mindless, must be led home by his son, so wet is his psyche... Water brings death to the psyche, as earth brings death to water... The psyche lusts to be wet.
HeraclitusWar is the father and king of all: some he has made gods, and some men; some slaves and some free.
HeraclitusA blow to the head will confuse a man's thinking, a blow to the foot has no such effect, this cannot be the result of an immaterial soul.
HeraclitusMay you have plenty of wealth, you men of Ephesus, in order that you may be punished for your evil ways
HeraclitusWhat sense or thought do they have? They follow the popular singers, and they take the crowd as their teacher.
HeraclitusOne must know that war is common, justice is strife, and everything happens according to strife and necessity.
HeraclitusThe only constant is change. Unless you get a small group of neighbors together to stop it.
HeraclitusThe 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.
HeraclitusNo one can step twice into the same river, nor touch mortal substance twice in the same condition. By the speed of its change, it scatters and gathers again.
HeraclitusTo God everything is beautiful, good, and just; humans, however, think some things are unjust and others just.
HeraclitusMost people do not take heed of the things they encounter, nor do they grasp them even when they have learned about them, although they suppose they do.
HeraclitusIt is by disease that health is pleasant; by evil that good is pleasant; by hunger, satiety; by weariness, rest.
HeraclitusI am what libraries and librarians have made me, with little assistance from a professor of Greek and poets
HeraclitusThe 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.
HeraclitusOf 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.
Heraclitus