Heraclitus Quotes

Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony.

Character is destiny.

The way up and the way down are one and the same.

Much learning does not teach understanding.

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.

Big results require big ambitions.

There is nothing permanent except change.

Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.

If you do not expect the unexpected you will not find it, for it is not to be reached by search or trail.

Nothing endures but change.

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.

A man’s character is his fate.

Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.

The sun is new each day.

The best people renounce all for one goal, the eternal fame of mortals; but most people stuff themselves like cattle.

God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, surfeit and hunger.

No one that encounters prosperity does not also encounter danger.

A man’s character is his guardian divinity.

The hidden harmony is better than the obvious.

To do the same thing over and over again is not only boredom: it is to be controlled by rather than to control what you do.

Justice will overtake fabricators of lies and false witnesses.

Even sleepers are workers and collaborators in what goes on in the Universe.

Change alone is unchanging.

You cannot step into the same river twice.

The eyes are more exact witnesses than the ears.

Eyes and ears are poor witnesses to people if they have uncultured souls.

Hide our ignorance as we will, an evening of wine soon reveals it.

The chain of wedlock is so heavy that it takes two to carry it – and sometimes three.

To God everything is beautiful, good, and just; humans, however, think some things are unjust and others just.

It is hard to contend against one’s heart’s desire; for whatever it wishes to have it buys at the cost of soul.

You could not step twice into the same rivers; for other waters are ever flowing on to you.

Nature is wont to hide herself.

Bigotry is the sacred disease.

Couples are wholes and not wholes, what agrees disagrees, the concordant is discordant. From all things one and from one all things.

I am what libraries and librarians have made me, with little assistance from a professor of Greek and poets.

Corpses are more fit to be thrown out than is dung.

Men who wish to know about the world must learn about it in its particular details.

Deliberate violence is more to be quenched than a fire.