Top 200 Heraclitus Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “You may travel far and wide but never will you find the boundaries of the soul.”

— Heraclitus

52. “Realize that war is common and justice is strife, and that all things come into being and pass away through strife.”

— Heraclitus

53. “All things come out of the one, and the one out of all things.”

— Heraclitus

54. “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

55. “Under the comb, the tangle and the straight path are the same.”

— Heraclitus

56. “Immortal mortals, mortal immortals, one living the others death and dying the others life.”

— Heraclitus

57. “The way up and the way down are one and the same.”

— Heraclitus

58. “The Cosmos was not made by gods but always was and is eternal fire.”

— Heraclitus

59. “Change alone is unchanging.”

— Heraclitus

60. “Character is our destiny.”

— Heraclitus

61. “Ever-newer waters flow on those who step into the same rivers.”

— Heraclitus

62. “To God all things are fair and good and right, but men hold some things wrong and some right.”

— Heraclitus

63. “Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow. Nothing endures but change.”

— Heraclitus

64. “No one can step twice into the same river, nor touch mortal substance twice in the same condition. By the speed of its change, it scatters and gathers again.”

— Heraclitus

65. “The gods are immortal men, and men are mortal gods.”

— Heraclitus

66. “Many who have learned from Hesiod the countless names of gods and monsters never understand that night and day are one.”

— Heraclitus

67. “War is the mother of everything.”

— Heraclitus

68. “Time is a game played beautifully by children.”

— Heraclitus

69. “What was scattered, gathers. What was gathered, blows away.”

— Heraclitus

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

— Heraclitus

71. “The seeing have the world in common.”

— Heraclitus

72. “Eyes are more accurate witnesses than ears.”

— Heraclitus

73. “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

74. “Man is on earth as in an egg.”

— Heraclitus

75. “All things flow, nothing abides.”

— Heraclitus

76. “The opposite is beneficial; from things that differ comes the fairest attunement; all things are born through strife.”

— Heraclitus

77. “Religion is a disease, but it is a noble disease.”

— Heraclitus

78. “Of all whose words I have heard, no one attains to this, to know that wisdom is apart from all.”

— Heraclitus

79. “Nature is wont to hide herself.”

— Heraclitus

80. “How can you hide from what never goes away?”

— Heraclitus

81. “The wise is one only. It is unwilling and willing to be called by the name of Zeus.”

— Heraclitus

82. “The awake share a common world, but the asleep turn aside into private worlds.”

— Heraclitus

83. “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

84. “The people should fight for the law as for their city wall.”

— Heraclitus

85. “It is difficult to fight against anger; for a man will buy revenge with his soul.”

— Heraclitus

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

— Heraclitus

87. “Eternity is a child playing, playing checkers; the kingdom belongs to a child.”

— Heraclitus

88. “Fire lives in the death of earth, air lives in the death of fire, water lives in the death of air, and earth in the death of water.”

— Heraclitus

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

— Heraclitus

90. “It is wise to listen, not to me but to the Word, and to confess that all things are one.”

— Heraclitus

91. “Justice will overtake fabricators of lies and false witnesses.”

— Heraclitus

92. “Those who hear and do not understand are like the deaf. Of them the proverb says: “Present, they are absent.””

— Heraclitus

93. “The universal cosmic process was not created by any god or man.”

— Heraclitus

94. “From out of all the many particulars comes oneness, and out of oneness come all the many particulars.”

— Heraclitus

95. “It is harder to fight pleasure than to fight emotion.”

— Heraclitus

96. “To me one man is worth ten thousand if he is first-rate.”

— Heraclitus

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

— Heraclitus

98. “All things come into being through opposition and all are in flux like a river.”

— Heraclitus

99. “Thinking is a sacred disease and sight is deceptive.”

— Heraclitus

100. “A blow to the head will confuse a man’s thinking, a blow to the foot has no such effect, this cannot be the result of an immaterial soul.”

— Heraclitus