Heraclitus of Ephesus was an Ancient Greek, pre-Socratic, Ionian philosopher and a native of the city of Ephesus, which was then part of the Persian Empire. These Heraclitus quotes will motivate you.
Best Heraclitus Quotes
- “The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you choose, what you think, and what you do is who you become.” ~ Heraclitus
- “There is nothing permanent except change.” ~ Heraclitus
- “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” ~ Heraclitus
- “The 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. The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you choose, what you think, and what you do is who you become. Your integrity is your destiny … it is the light that guides your way.” ~ Heraclitus”The world is nothing but a great desire to live and a great dissatisfaction with living.” ~ Heraclitus
- “Dogs bark at what they don’t understand.” ~ Heraclitus
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“Big results require big ambitions.” ~ Heraclitus
- “If you do not expect the unexpected, you will not recognize it when it arrives.” ~ Heraclitus
- “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.” ~ Heraclitus
- “Those who are awake all live in the same world. Those who are asleep live in their own worlds.” ~ Heraclitus
- “Day by day, what you do is who you become.” ~ Heraclitus
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“Because it is so unbelievable, the Truth often escapes being known.” ~ Heraclitus
- “Whosoever wishes to know about the world must learn about it in its particular details. Knowledge is not intelligence. In searching for the truth be ready for the unexpected. Change alone is unchanging. The same road goes both up and down. The beginning of a circle is also its end. Not I, but the world says it: all is one. And yet everything comes in season.” ~ Heraclitus
- “Abundance of knowledge does not teach men to be wise.” ~ Heraclitus
- “All things flow, nothing abides. You cannot step into the same river twice, for the waters are continually flowing on. Nothing is permanent except change.” ~ Heraclitus
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“Wisdom consists in speaking and acting the truth.” ~ Heraclitus
- “Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.” ~ Heraclitus
- “Knowledge is not intelligence.” ~ Heraclitus
- “What was scattered, gathers.
What was gathered, blows away” ~ Heraclitus - “Much learning does not teach sense.” ~ Heraclitus
- “Those who approach life like a child playing a game, moving and pushing pieces, possess the power of kings.” ~ Heraclitus
- “Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.” ~ Heraclitus
- “To get everything you want is not a good thing. Disease makes health seem sweet. Hunger leads to the appreciation of being full-fed. Tiredness creates the enjoyment of resting” ~ Heraclitus
- “You won’t discover the limits of the soul, however far you go.” ~ Heraclitus
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“Knowing many things doesn’t teach insight.” ~ Heraclitus
- “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.” ~ Heraclitus
- “Stupidity is better kept a secret than displayed.” ~ Heraclitus
- “It is in changing that things find purpose.” ~ Heraclitus
- “It is difficult to fight against anger; for a man will buy revenge with his soul.” ~ Heraclitus Quotes
- “If you do not hope, you will not win that which is not hoped for, since it is unattainable and inaccessible.” ~ Heraclitus
- “Everything flows, nothing stays still.” ~ Heraclitus
- “A hidden connection is stronger than an obvious one.” ~ Heraclitus
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“Nothing is, everything is becoming.” ~ Heraclitus
- “All things come into being by conflict of opposites.” ~ Heraclitus
- “A man’s character is his fate.” ~ Heraclitus
- “Everything flows and nothing abides; everything gives way and nothing stays fixed… Cool things become warm, the warm grows cool; the moist dries, the parched becomes moist… It is in changing that things find repose.” ~ Heraclitus
- “All things are in flux; the flux is subject to a unifying measure or rational principle. This principle (logos, the hidden harmony behind all change) bound opposites together in a unified tension, which is like that of a lyre, where a stable harmonious sound emerges from the tension of the opposing forces that arise from the bow bound together by the string.” ~ Heraclitus
- “Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony.” ~ Heraclitus
- “The 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.” ~ Heraclitus
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“Religion is a disease, but it is a noble disease.” ~ Heraclitus
- “How can you hide from what never goes away?” ~ Heraclitus
- “I 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” ~ Heraclitus
- “Eyes and ears are poor witnesses to people if they have uncultured souls.” ~ Heraclitus Quotes
- “We have to be faster in calming down a resentment than putting out a fire, because the consequences of the first are infinitely more dangerous than the results of the last; fire ends burning down some houses at the most, while the resentment can cause cruel wars, with the ruin and total destruction of nations.” ~ Heraclitus
- “What is divine escapes men’s notice because of their incredulity.” ~ Heraclitus
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“Presumption must be quenched even more than a fire.” ~ Heraclitus
- “The 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.” ~ Heraclitus
- “If it were not for injustice, men would not know justice.” ~ Heraclitus
- “It is by disease that health is pleasant; by evil that good is pleasant; by hunger, satiety; by weariness, rest.” ~ Heraclitus
- “It would not be better if things happened to men just as they wish.” ~ Heraclitus
- “If we do not expect the unexpected, we will never find it.” ~ Heraclitus
- “Applicants for wisdom
do what I have done:
inquire within” ~ Heraclitus - “Those who hear and do not understand are like the deaf. Of them, the proverb says: “Present, they are absent.” ~ Heraclitus
- “It is hard to contend against one’s heart’s desire; for whatever it wishes to have it buys at the cost of soul.” ~ Heraclitus
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“The way up and the way down are one and the same.” ~ Heraclitus
- “War is the mother of everything.” ~ Heraclitus
- “Greater dooms win greater destinies.” ~ Heraclitus
- “Change alone is unchanging.” ~ Heraclitus
- “The best of men choose one thing in preference to all else, immortal glory in preference to mortal good; whereas the masses simply glut themselves like cattle.” ~ Heraclitus
- “Wisdom is the oneness of mind that guides and permeated all things.” ~ Heraclitus
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“It is harder to fight pleasure than to fight emotion.” ~ Heraclitus
- “Of 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
- “There is a stability in the Universe because of the orderly and balanced process of change, the same measure coming out as going in, as if reality were a huge fire that inhaled and exhaled equal amounts.” ~ Heraclitus
- “You cannot step twice into the same river.” ~ Heraclitus
- “What sense or thought do they have? They follow the popular singers, and they take the crowd as their teacher.” ~ Heraclitus
- “The unlike is joined together, and from differences results the most beautiful harmony.” ~ Heraclitus
