Fragments Quotes

“Time is a game played beautifully by children.”
― Heraclitus, Fragments

“Even a soul submerged in sleep
is hard at work and helps
make something of the world.”
― Heraclitus, Fragments

“To be evenminded
is the greatest virtue.
Wisdom is to speak
the truth and act
in keeping with its nature.”
― Heraclitus, Fragments

“Man's character is his fate.”
― Heraclitus, Fragments

“Whoever cannot seek the unforeseen sees nothing for the known way is an impasse.”
― Heraclitus, Fragments

“Wisdom is the oneness of mind that guides and permeates all things.”
― Heraclitus, Fragments

“Character is destiny”
― Heraclitus, Fragments

“Thinking is a sacred disease and sight is deceptive.”
― Heraclitus, Fragments

“People ought to fight
to keep their law
as to defend the citys walls.”
― Heraclitus, Fragments

“The road up and the road down is one and the same.
(ὁδὸς ἄνω κάτω μία καὶ ὡυτή)
—Fragment 60”
― Heraclitus, Fragments

“It ever was, and is, and shall be, ever-living fire, in measures being kindled and in measures going out.”
― Heraclitus, Fragments

“War is father of all, and king of all. He renders some gods, others men; he makes some slaves, others free.”
― Heraclitus, Fragments

“Without injustices,
the name of justice
would mean what?”
― Heraclitus, Fragments

“If you do not expect the unexpected, you will not find it; for it is hard to be sought out and difficult.”
― Heraclitus, Fragments

“The sun is the width of a human foot.”
― Heraclitus, Fragments

“Stupidity is doomed,
therefore, to cringe
at every syllable
of wisdom.”
― Heraclitus, Fragments

“Always having what we want
may not be the best good fortune
Health seems sweetest
after sickness, food
in hunger, goodness
in the wake of evil, and at the end
of daylong labor sleep.”
― Heraclitus, Fragments

“Many who have learned
from Hesiod the countless names
of gods and monsters
never understand
that night and day are one”
― Heraclitus, Fragments

“The poet was a fool
who wanted no conflict
among us, gods
or people.
Harmony needs
low and high,
as progeny needs
man and woman.”
― Heraclitus, Fragments

“Eyes and ears are bad witnesses to men having barbarian souls.”
― Heraclitus, Fragments

“Applicants for wisdom
do what I have done:
inquire within”
― Heraclitus, Fragments

“Even what those with the greatest reputation for knowing it all claim to understand and defend are but opinions.”
― Heraclitus, Fragments

“The Aeon is a child at play with colored balls.

(translation/paraphrase: Terence McKenna)”
― Heraclitus, Fragments

“All is flux”
― Heraclitus, The Fragments of the Work of Heraclitus of Ephesus on Nature with an Introduction Historical and Critical

“Give me one man
from among ten thousand
if he is the best”
― Heraclitus, Fragments

“Traveling on every path, you will not find the boundaries of soul by going; so deep is its measure.”
― Heraclitus, Fragments

“You can't go home again. Your childhood is lost. The friends of your youth are gone. Your present is slipping away from you. Nothing is ever the same.”
― Heraclitus of Ephesus, The fragments of the work of Heraclitus of Ephesus on nature; translated from the Greek text of Bywater, with an introd. historical and critical

“Ἐδιζησάμην ἐμεωυτόν: I searched myself.”
― Heraclitus, Fragments

“Eternity is like a child playing at draughts; the kingdom belongs to a child.”
― Heraclitus, Fragments

“You will not discover the limits of the soul
by traveling, even if you wander over every
conceivable path, so deep is its story.”
― Heraclitus, Fragments