Top 200 Heraclitus Quotes (2025 Update)
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151. “The unseen harmony is better than the visible.”

— Heraclitus

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

— Heraclitus

153. “Unless you expect the unexpected, you will not find it, for it is hidden and thickly tangled.”

— Heraclitus

154. “To God all things are beautiful, good, and right; human beings, on the other hand, deem some things right and others wrong. It would not be better if things happened to people just as they wish.”

— Heraclitus

155. “It is by disease that health is pleasant; by evil that good is pleasant; by hunger, satiety; by weariness, rest.”

— Heraclitus

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

— Heraclitus

157. “When men dream, each has his own world. When they are awake, they have a common world.”

— Heraclitus

158. “The unlike is joined together, and from differences results the most beautiful harmony.”

— Heraclitus

159. “Doctors cut, burn, and torture the sick, and then demand of them an undeserved fee for such services.”

— Heraclitus

160. “The Sibyl, with frenzied mouth uttering things not to be laughed at, unadorned and unperfumed, yet reaches to a thousand years with her voice by aid of the god.”

— Heraclitus

161. “The sun is the width of a human foot.”

— Heraclitus

162. “What are men? Mortal gods. What are gods? Immortal men.”

— Heraclitus

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

— Heraclitus

164. “To fight with desire is hard: whatever it wishes, it buys at the price of soul.”

— Heraclitus

165. “You won’t discover the limits of the soul, however far you go.”

— Heraclitus

166. “Wisdom is one thing, to know how to make true judgment, how all things are steered through all things.”

— Heraclitus

167. “Man, like a light in the night, is kindled and put out.”

— Heraclitus

168. “It is better to conceal ignorance than to expose it.”

— Heraclitus

169. “This universe, which is the same for all, has not been made by any god or man, but it always has been, is, and will be an ever-living fire, kindling itself by regular measures and going out by regular measures.”

— Heraclitus

170. “All men have the capacity of knowing themselves and acting with moderation.”

— Heraclitus

171. “Heraclitus somewhere says that all things are in process and nothing stays still, and likening existing things to the stream of a river he says that you would not step twice into the same river.”

— Heraclitus

172. “People ought to fight to keep their law as to defend the citys walls.”

— Heraclitus

173. “Bigotry is the sacred disease.”

— Heraclitus

174. “That which always was, and is, and will be everliving fire, the same for all, the cosmos, made neither by god or man, replenishes in measure as it burns away.”

— Heraclitus

175. “It is not appropriate to act and speak like men asleep.”

— Heraclitus

176. “It is better to hide ignorance, but it is hard to do this when we relax over wine.”

— Heraclitus

177. “We must therefore be guided by what is common to all. The Logos is common to all, yet the multitude lives as if each had his own intelligence.”

— Heraclitus

178. “Dogs, by this same logic, bark at what they cannot understand.”

— Heraclitus

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

— Heraclitus

180. “It is weariness to keep toiling at the same things so that one becomes ruled by them.”

— Heraclitus

181. “If they are gods, why do you lament them? If you lament them, you must no longer regard them as gods.”

— Heraclitus

182. “Things of which there is sight, hearing, apprehension, these I prefer.”

— Heraclitus

183. “It is necessary to take what is common as our guide; however, though this logic is universal, the many live as if each individual has his own private wisdom.”

— Heraclitus

184. “Could you tell night from day? No, I regard all such distinctions as logically impossible.”

— Heraclitus

185. “Though wisdom is common, yet the many live as if they had a wisdom of their own.”

— Heraclitus

186. “One must know that war is common, justice is strife, and everything happens according to strife and necessity.”

— Heraclitus

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

— Heraclitus

188. “Time is a child playing with droughts. The lordship is to the child.”

— Heraclitus

189. “The death of fire is the birth of air, and the death of air is the birth of water. For it is death to souls to become water, and death to water to become earth. But water comes from earth; and from water, soul. Cold things become warm, and what is warm cools; what is wet dries, and the parched is moistened. And it is the same thing in us that is quick and dead, awake and asleep, young and old; the former are shifted and become the latter, and the latter in turn are shifted and become the former.”

— Heraclitus

190. “The waking have one world in common; sleepers have each a private world of his own.”

— Heraclitus

191. “For what sense or understanding have they? They follow minstrels and take the multitude for a teacher, not knowing that many are bad and few good. For the best men choose one thing above all – immortal glory among mortals; but the masses stuff themselves like cattle.”

— Heraclitus

192. “Most people do not take heed of the things they encounter, nor do they grasp them even when they have learned about them, although they suppose they do.”

— Heraclitus

193. “The people must fight on behalf of the law as though for the city wall.”

— Heraclitus

194. “Although the Word is common to all, many live as if they had a private understanding of their own.”

— Heraclitus

195. “It is necessary to understand that war is common, strife is customary, and all things happen because of strife and necessity.”

— Heraclitus

196. “And some men are as ignorant of what they do when awake as they are forgetful of what they do when asleep.”

— Heraclitus

197. “The kosmos works by harmony of tensions, like lyre and bow. Good and evil are one. On the one hand God sees all as well, fair, and good; on the other hand a human being sees injustice here, justice there. Justice in our minds is strife. We cannot help but see war makes us as we are.”

— Heraclitus

198. “Much learning does not teach understanding.”

— Heraclitus

199. “War is the father of all and the king of all; it proves some people gods, and some people men; it makes some people slaves and some people free.”

— Heraclitus

200. “Who will hide from the fire that does not set?”

— Heraclitus