The 35 best quotes by Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher

We compile the best famous quotes by Heraclitus of Ephesus.

Heraclitus of Ephesus (540 BC - 480 BC) was a Greek philosopher, also known as "The Dark One of Ephesus". Born in a town in present-day Turkey, he is one of the most studied pre-Plato philosophers, despite the fact that only a few original writings have survived.

The work of this Greek thinker is aphoristic and it is necessary a great interpretative dowry to understand his teachings.

Great famous quotes and phrases of Heraclitus

In this article we will try to synthesize the philosophy of Heraclitus through his best phrases.. They are famous quotes that summarize his knowledge and that reached us through the centuries.

• "70 phrases of Socrates to understand his thought".
• "The 80 best phrases of Plato and his philosophy".
• "The 100 best phrases of Aristotle the Greek".

1. No one bathes in the river twice because everything changes in the river and in the one who bathes in it.

Perhaps his most studied and commented reflection. Everything is ephemeral, so we cannot affirm categorically that an entity remains the same in two different instants.

2. Doctors cut, burn, torture. And by doing good to the sick, which seems more like evil, they demand a reward that they hardly deserve.

On the fearful presumptuous ignorance of physicians.

3. To God everything is beautiful, good, and just. Men have conceived the just and the unjust.

It is mankind that conceives the ethical principles of good and evil.

4. The waters that cover those who enter the same river are different.

Another famous quote from Heraclitus in relation to the mutability of matter.

5. With as much ardor the citizens must fight for the defense of the laws, as for that of their walls, not being less necessary those than these for the conservation of a city.

Defense and order, two basic principles for the subsistence of a civilization.

6. Gold diggers dig a lot and find little.

Great enterprises often entail great disappointments.

7. Sickness makes health pleasant; hunger makes satiety pleasant; fatigue makes repose pleasant.

Without the less pleasant side of existence we would not be able to appreciate the joy of living.

8. In the circle the beginning and the end are confused.

Plastic metaphor of great aesthetic and philosophical value.

9. It is granted to every man to know himself and to meditate wisely.

The gift of self-reflection. It is only necessary to sit down and meditate on life.

10. If you do not expect the unexpected, you will not recognize it when it comes.

The unexpected, sooner or later, may come. So be on your guard.

11. Donkeys prefer straw to gold.

The perception of value is not in the hands of just anyone.

12. God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, plenty and famine.

Omnipotent and omnipresent. One of the phrases of Heraclitus in which he expresses his vision of the divine entity.

13. All human laws are nourished by the divine law.

Human morality is but a confirmation of the celestial laws.

14. Everything changes; nothing is.

Another famous quotation, very concise, on the mutability of matter.

15. Death is all that we see while awake; sleep is all that we see while asleep.

Precious oneiric phrase with which to reflect.

16. Dogs only bark at those they do not know.

With this famous quote, Heraclitus exhorts us to reflect.

17. The sun is new every day.

It can be interpreted in different ways, but it is probable that Heraclitus pronounced this phrase thinking again of the permanent change of reality.

18. The dry soul is the wisest and the best.

Without artifice, without make-up.

19. It is wise to listen not to me, but ("to the logos") to the word, and to recognize that all things are one.

A sample of his philosophical monism, a doctrine also supported by Parmenides, Spinoza or Hegel.

20. This world always was, is and will be an eternally living fire.

The flame of existence is rarely extinguished.

21. War is the origin of everything.

Interesting reflection on violence.

22. Dead bodies should be disposed of with greater reason than manure.

Perhaps to prevent the spread of infectious diseases.

23. Nothing is permanent except change.

Change is the only thing we can take for certain and reliable.

24. Do not make people laugh to the point of giving cause for laughter.

Self-respect and composure, very present in the work of Heraclitus.

25. Because without forces of collision there is no movement and no reality.

In conflict lies the essence and the synthesis.

26. If all things became smoke, noses would discern.

Metaphor to apply to different contexts of life.

27. Once born, they want to live and reach their destiny, but rather rest, so they leave behind them to reach their destiny.

On human existence.

28. Erudition does not teach wisdom, for it would have taught it to Hesiod and Pythagoras and even to Xenophanes and Hecataeus.

To have ample knowledge does not imply to have reached maturity and wisdom.

29. One's opinion, a sacred disease.

On the banality of ill-founded opinions.

30. Let us not go about conjecturing randomly on the most important subjects.

Very much in line with the previous sentence of Heraclitus.

31. It is necessary to know that war is common; justice, strife, and that everything happens by strife and necessity.

Another phrase of Heraclitus in which he exonerates conflict from the intuitive rejection that people show for it.

32. The eyes are more accurate witnesses than the ears.

Human perception prioritizes the sense of sight. But this is a metaphorical reflection.

33. The wise is the goal of the human soul and, as it advances in its knowledge, it moves away in turn the horizon of the unknown.

Knowledge makes us free and gives us a place in the world.

34. The soul is tinged with the color of its thoughts.

Positive phrase of the great Greek philosopher.

35. Human health is a reflection of the health of the Earth.

One of the first famous ecological quotes in this phrase of Heraclitus.