Pre-Socratic Wonder
Ἡράκλειτος
c. 535 – c. 475 BCE · Ephesus, Ionia
An aristocrat of Ephesus known for terse, riddling sayings that survive only as fragments quoted by later writers. He saw the world as ceaseless change held together by an underlying order he called the logos, and was nicknamed "the Obscure" in antiquity.
“You cannot step twice into the same rivers; for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you.”
Heraclitus, fragment (in John Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy), Burnet fr. 41 · trans. John Burnet (1892) · source
Wording awaiting editorial check against the source.
Burnet's numbering differs from Diels–Kranz (approx. DK B12/B91); confirm wording and fragment number against Burnet's text.
A person's character is their destiny: what we become is shaped less by outside powers than by the kind of person we are.
Heraclitus, fragment, DK B119
This world order, the same for all, no god or human made; it always was, is and will be an ever-living fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures.
Heraclitus, fragment, DK B30
Paraphrase and reference awaiting verification against the source.
The road up and the road down are one and the same.
Heraclitus, fragment, DK B60
Paraphrase and reference awaiting verification against the source.
Heraclitus says simply: I searched myself.
Heraclitus, fragment, DK B101
Paraphrase and reference awaiting verification against the source.
Strife, or war, is called the father and king of all things: conflict is not a breakdown of order but part of how order arises.
Heraclitus, fragment, DK B53, cf. B80
Paraphrase and reference awaiting verification against the source.
Nature loves to hide.
Heraclitus, fragment, DK B123
Paraphrase and reference awaiting verification against the source.
Though the logos is common to all, Heraclitus complains, people fail to understand it, both before they hear it and after, like sleepers who do not notice what they do awake.
Heraclitus, fragment, DK B1, cf. B2
Paraphrase and reference awaiting verification against the source.
Pre-Socratic Wonder (6th–5th c. BCE). The first Greek thinkers asked what the world is made of and how change and permanence fit together, turning myth into open inquiry.