Heraclitus Quotations

All quotations are Diels-Krantz, but taken from James Warren's Presocratics

“This logos being the case always men fail to understand, both before they hear and when first they have heard it. For, although all things come to be according to this logos, they seem to be unaware as they try out both the words and deeds of the sort that I set out by distinguishing each thing according to nature and saying how it is. Other men do not pay attention to what they do when awake, just as they do not pay attention to what they do when asleep.”

DK 22 B1

“Listening not to me but to the logos, it is wise to agree that all things are one.”

DK 22 B50

“Although the logos is common, many live as though their thought were private.”

DK 22 B2

This ordering, the same for all, no god nor human made, but was and is and will be always, fire everlasting, kindling in measures and going out in measures.

DK 22 B30

The reversals of fire: first sea, of sea the half earth half lightning.

DK 22 B31a

Sea is poured out and measured into the same ratio as it was before becoming earth.

DK 22 B31b

All things are repayment for fire and fire for all things, just as goods are for gold and gold for goods.

DK 22 B90

Fire as it progresses will discriminate and grasp all things.

DK 22 B66

All things the thunderbolt steers.

DK 22 B64

Sea: purest and foulest water; for fish drinkable and nourishing, for humans undrinkable and deadly.

DK 22 B61

The road up and down is one and the same

DK 22 B60

Disease made health sweet and good, hunger satiety, and tiredness rest.

DK 22 B111

Into the same rivers we both step and do not step; we both are and are not.

DK 22 B49a

It is not possible, according to Heraclitus, to step twice into the same river.

DK 22 B91