TERMS STARTING WITH
Heraclitus Herakleitos (535-475 BC) Greek philosopher from Ephesus, known as “the obscure” because of difficult writing style. He held that knowledge is based on sense perceptions, and wisdom consists in recognizing the intelligence that guides the universe. Everything is in constant flux, everything being resolvable into the primordial element fire after cycling through all the elements. Nature is constantly dividing and uniting itself, so that all things are at once identical and not identical. ( )
Heraclitus: ("The Obscure") Of Ephesus, about 536-470 B.C. In opposition to the Milesians, from whom he is separated by a generation, he held that there is nothing abiding in the world. All things and the universe as a whole are in constant, ceaseless flux, nothing is, only change is real, all is a continuous passing away. For this reason the world appeared to him to be in ever-living fire, a consuming movement in which only the orderliness of the succession of things, or, as Heraclitus called it, the "reason"' or "destiny" of the world remains alway the same. Heraclitus thus foreshadowed the modern conception of the uniformity of natural law. Cf. Diels, Frag, d. Vor, I, ch. 12. -- M.F.
TERMS ANYWHERE
Akshara (Sanskrit) Akṣara [from a not + kṣara flowing from the verbal root kṣar to flow, melt away] Imperishable; name of Brahman, also on occasion of Siva and Vishnu, signifying their enduring, imperishable nature for the term of the mahamanvantara. Krishna tells Arjuna that there are two Purushas in the world — kshara and akshara — the perishable and the imperishable; that all beings are kshara in the sense used by the Greek philosopher Heraclitus: panta rhei (all things flow); and that which dies not is akshara (BG 15:16-17). But the highest Purusha is still another, the paramatman (supreme atman).
Heraclitus Herakleitos (535-475 BC) Greek philosopher from Ephesus, known as “the obscure” because of difficult writing style. He held that knowledge is based on sense perceptions, and wisdom consists in recognizing the intelligence that guides the universe. Everything is in constant flux, everything being resolvable into the primordial element fire after cycling through all the elements. Nature is constantly dividing and uniting itself, so that all things are at once identical and not identical. ( )
Heraclitus: ("The Obscure") Of Ephesus, about 536-470 B.C. In opposition to the Milesians, from whom he is separated by a generation, he held that there is nothing abiding in the world. All things and the universe as a whole are in constant, ceaseless flux, nothing is, only change is real, all is a continuous passing away. For this reason the world appeared to him to be in ever-living fire, a consuming movement in which only the orderliness of the succession of things, or, as Heraclitus called it, the "reason"' or "destiny" of the world remains alway the same. Heraclitus thus foreshadowed the modern conception of the uniformity of natural law. Cf. Diels, Frag, d. Vor, I, ch. 12. -- M.F.
(b) Physics: In Greek philosophy, the ultimate principles of nature and change were contraries: e.g. love-strife; motion-rest; potentiality-actuality. All motion is between contraries. See Heraclitus, Empedodes, Aristotle. -- L.M.H.
Change, Philosophy of: (a) Any philosophical doctrine dealing with the subject of change, e.g., Aristotle's philosophy of change, (b) any philosophy which makes change an essential or pervasive character of reality, e.g., the philosophies of Heraclitus and Bergson. -- W.K.F.
Empedocles: Of Agrigentum, about 490-430 B.C.; attempted to reconcile the teaching of the permanence of Being of the Eleatics with the experience of change and motion as emphasized by Heraclitus. He taught the doctrine of the four "elements", earth, water, air and fire, out of the mixture of which all individual things came to be; love and hate being the cause of motion and therefore of the mixings of these elements. He was thus led to introduce a theory of value into the explanation of Nature since love and hate accounted also for the good and evil in the world. -- M.F.
F. Logos: (Gr. logos) A term denoting either reason or one of the expressions of reason or order in words or things; such as word, discourse, definition, formula, principle, mathematical ratio. In its most important sense in philosophy it refers to a cosmic reason which gives order and intelligibility to the world. In this sense the doctrine first appears in Heraclitus, who affirms the reality of a Logos analogous to the reason in man that regulates all physical processes and is the source of all human law. The conception is developed more fully by the Stoics, who conceive of the world as a living unity, perfect in the adaptation of its parts to one another and to the whole, and animated by an immanent and purposive reason. As the creative source of this cosmic unity and perfection the world-reason is called the seminal reason (logos spermatikos), and is conceived as containing within itself a multitude of logoi spermatikoi, or intelligible and purposive forms operating in the world. As regulating all things, the Logos is identified with Fate (heimarmene); as directing all things toward the good, with Providence (pronoia); and as the ordered course of events, with Nature (physis). In Philo of Alexandria, in whom Hebrew modes of thought mingle with Greek concepts, the Logos becomes the immaterial instrument, and even at times the personal agency, through which the creative activity of the transcendent God is exerted upon the world. In Christian philosophy the Logos becomes the second person of the Trinity and its functions are identified with the creative, illuminating and redemptive work of Jesus Christ. Finally the Logos plays an important role in the system of Plotinus, where it appears as the creative and form-giving aspect of Intelligence (Nous), the second of the three Hypostases. -- G. R.
Ionian or Ionic School A school of Greek philosophers of the 5th and 6th centuries BC in Ionia, considered to have been founded by Thales of Miletus (640-550 BC) and including Anaximander, Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, Heraclitus, Diogenes of Apollonia, Archelaus, and Hippo. They were astronomers, geometers, and geographers who sought to explain the universe in terms of matter, movement, and force. Thales and Hippo make the cosmic element water the primordial originating element; Anaximenes and Diogenes of Apollonia make it the cosmic element air; Heraclitus, the cosmic element fire. Anaxagoras postulates a supreme hierarchical mind (nous) as imparting evolutionary form and order to chaos, the undeveloped substance of nature.
Motion: (Lat. moveo, move) Difference in space. Change of place. Erected into a universal principle by Heraclitus. Denied as a possibility by Parmenides and Zeno. Subdivided by Aristotle into alteration or change in shape, and augmentation or diminution or change in size. In realism: exclusively a property of actuality. -- J.K.F.
Parmenides: 6th-5th century B.C., head of the Eleatic School of Greek Philosophy, developed the conception of "Being" in opposition to the "Becoming" of Heraclitus. To think at all we must postulate something which is, that which is not cannot be thought, and cannot be. Thought without being or being without thought are impossible, and the two are therefore identical. At the same time the "Being" of Parmenides is that which fills space, non-being is empty space Empty space therefore cannot be, and if empty space or the "Void" cannot be then the plurality of individual things is equally not real since this results from the motion of the "full" in the "void". There is thus for Parmenides only one "Being" without inner differentiation; this alone really is, while the particularity of individual things is appearance, illusion. Homogeneous and unchangeable "Being" is the only reality. -- M.F.
Philosophy of Change: The theory that change itself is the only enduring pnnciple and therefore the fundamental reality. Applied to the views of Heraclitus, and in modern times to those of Henri Bergson. -- R.T.F.
Same and Other: One of the "persistent problems" of philosophy which goes back at least to Parmenides and Heraclitus (q.v.). In its most general form it raises the question: Is reality explicable in terms of one principle, ultimately the same in all things (monism), or is reality ultimately heterogeneous, requiring a plurality of first principles (pluralism)? Plato really developed the problem (in the Sophist, Parmenides and Timaeus) by suggesting that both sameness and otherness are required for a complete explanation of things. It is closely related to the problems of One and Many, Identity and Difference, of Universal and Individual in Mediaeval Scholasticism. With Hegel and Fichte the problem becomes fused with that of Spirit and Matter, or of Self and Not-self. -- V.J.B.
T'ime: The general medium in which all events take place in succession or appear to take place in succession. All specific and finite periods of time, whether past, present or future, constitute merely parts of the entire and single Time. Common-sense interprets Time vaguely as something moving toward the future or as something in which events point in that direction. But the many contradictions contained in this notion have led philosophers to postulate doctrines purporting to eliminate some of the difficulties implied in common-sense ideas. The first famous but unresolved controversy arose in Ancient Greece, between Parmenides, who maintained that change and becoming were irrational illusions, and Heraclitus, who asserted that there was no permanence and that change characterized everything without exception. Another great controversy arose centuries later between disciples of Newton and Leibniz. According to Newton, time was independent of, and prior to, events; in his own words, "absolute time, and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature, flows equably without regard to anything external." According to Leibniz, on the other hand, there can be no time independent of events: for time is formed by events and relations among them, and constitutes the universal order of succession. It was this latter doctrine which eventually gave rise to the doctrine of space-time, in which both space and time are regarded as two systems of relations, distinct from a perceptual standpoint, but inseparably bound together in reality. All these controversies led many thinkers to believe that the concept of time cannot be fully accounted for, unless we distinguish between perceptual, or subjective, time, which is confined to the perceptually shifting 'now' of the present, and conceptual, or objective, time, which includes til periods of time and in which the events we call past, present and future can be mutually and fixedly related. See Becoming, Change, Duration, Persistence, Space-Time. -- R.B.W.
While the term Personalism is modern it stands for an old way of thinking which grows out of the attempt to interpret the self as a part of phenomenological experience. Personalistic elements found expression in Heraclitus' (536-470 B.C.) statement "Man's own character is his daemon" (Fr. 119), and in his assertion of the Logos as an enduring principle of permanence in a world of change. These elements are traceable likewise in the cosmogony of Anaxagoras (500-430 B.C.), who gave philosophy an anthropocentric trend by affirming that mind "regulated all things, what they were to be, what they were and what they are", the force which arranges and guides (Fr. 12) Protagoras (cir. 480-410 B.C.) emphasized the personalistic character of knowledge in the famous dictum "Man is the measure of all things."
Zeno of Elea: (about 490-430 B.C.) Disciple of Parmenides, defended the doctrine of his master that only changeless "Being" is real by indirect proofs exposing the logical absurdities involved in the opposite view, namely that plurality and change are real. Zeno's famous arguments against the possibility of motion were intended as proofs that motion was full of contradictions and that it could not therefore serve as a principle for the explanation of all phenomena, as the atomists, Heraclitus, Empedocles and others had taught. -- M.F.
KEYS (10k)
84 Heraclitus
11 Sri Aurobindo
10 Heraclitus
5 Friedrich Nietzsche
1 reading :::
50 Philosophy Classics: List of Books Covered:
1. Hannah Arendt - The Human Condition (1958)
2. Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics (4th century BC)
3. AJ Ayer - Language
1 Rajneesh
1 Plutarch
1 Heraclitus 88
1 Alfred Korzybski
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
418 Heraclitus
23 Friedrich Nietzsche
11 Sri Aurobindo
5 Plutarch
4 Marcus Aurelius
3 Rajneesh
3 Peter Adamson
3 Jorge Luis Borges
3 Aristotle
2 Tom Rachman
2 Swami Abhayananda
2 Philip K Dick
2 Michel de Montaigne
2 Mehmet Murat ildan
2 Jostein Gaarder
2 Epictetus
2
1:Life is a child moving counters in a game. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
2:Character is destiny. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
3:Nature loves to hide. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
4:The sun is new each day. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
5:Things keep their secrets. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
6:What are men? Mortal gods. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
7:What was scattered, gathers. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
8:Asses prefer garbage to gold. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
9:Man is on earth as in an egg. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
10:A dry soul is wisest and best. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
11:A man's character is his fate. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
12:Knowledge is not intelligence. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
13:A fool is excited by every word. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
14:War is the father of all things. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
15:All is flux; nothing stays still. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
16:Much learning does not teach sense. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
17:Greater dooms win greater destinies. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
18:The seeing have the world in common. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
19:It is in changing that we find purpose. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
20:The path up and down is one and the same. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
21:How can you hide from what never goes away? ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
22:It is created little by little, day by day. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
23:The phases of fire are craving and satiety. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
24:The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
25:Time is a game played beautifully by children. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
26:Latent structure is master of obvious structure ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
27:One man is worth thousand if he is extraordinary ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
28:What allows us to be human is something daemonic. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
29:Wisdom consists in speaking and acting the truth. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
30:One ought not to act and speak like people asleep. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
31:To God all things are beautiful and good and just. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
32:Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
33:No man ever wrote more eloquently and luminously [than Heraclitus]. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #KEYS
34:The gods are immortal men, and men are mortal gods. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
35:The habit of knowledge
is not human but devine. ~ Heraclitus,#KEYS
36:We circle in the night and we are devoured by fire. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
37:A hidden connection is stronger than an obvious one. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
38:[Heraclitus speaks as if] in entrancement ... but [also] truthfully. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #KEYS
39:Thinking is a sacred disease and sight is deceptive. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
40:Abundance of knowledge does not teach men to be wise. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
41:It is harder to fight pleasure than to fight emotion. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
42:Man, like a light in the night, is kindled and put out. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
43:The people must fight for their laws as for their walls. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
44:To me one man is worth ten thousand if he is first-rate. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
45:All men participate in the possibility of self-knowledge. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
46:If it were not for injustice, men would not know justice. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
47:As Meander says, "For our mind is God;" and as Heraclitus, "Man's genius is a deity." ~ Plutarch, #KEYS
48:Human opinions are playthings. ~ Heraclitus 88, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
49:It was Heraclitus' ideas that seized Nietzsche so totally that he became completely mad. ~ Rajneesh, #KEYS
50:The fairest order in the world is a heap of random sweepings. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
51:All things come out of the one, and the one out of all things. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
52:Under the comb, the tangle and the straight path are the same. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
53:Without injustices,
the name of justice
would mean what? ~ Heraclitus,#KEYS
54:You won't discover the limits of the soul, however far you go. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
55:Unless the unhoped for is hoped for, it will not be discovered. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
56:What is a man? A mortal God. What then is a God? An immortal man. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
57:All wisdom is one: to understand the spirit that rules all by all. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
58:It would not be better if things happened to men just as they wish. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
59:Wisdom is the oneness of mind that guides and permeates all things. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
60:[Heraclitus] concluded that coming-to-be itself could not be anything evil or unjust. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #KEYS
61:Men that love wisdom must be acquainted with very many things indeed. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
62:The oneness of all wisdom may be found, or not, under the name of God. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
63:All men have the capacity of knowing themselves and acting with moderation. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
64:Men who love wisdom should acquaint themselves with a great many particulars. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
65:All things come into being through opposition and all are in flux like a river ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
66:Eternity is a child playing, playing checkers; the kingdom belongs to a child. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
67:[Heraclitus had] pride not in logical knowledge but rather in intuitive grasping of the truth. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #KEYS
68:The awake share a common world, but the asleep turn aside into private worlds. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
69:If you do not expect the unexpected, you will not recognize it when it arrives. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
70:Stupidity is doomed,
therefore, to cringe
at every syllable
of wisdom. ~ Heraclitus,#KEYS
71:To fight with desire is hard: whatever it wishes, it buys at the price of soul. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
72:Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.
~ Heraclitus,#KEYS
73:Whoever cannot seek the unforeseen sees nothing, for the known way is an impasse. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
74:Yearning hurts,
and what release
may come of it
feels much like death. ~ Heraclitus,#KEYS
75:The wise is one only. It is unwilling and willing to be called by the name of Zeus. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
76:All men participate in the possibility of self-knowledge. ~ Heraclitus, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
77:The perfect man is a divine child! ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, Heraclitus - VII, #KEYS
78:Even a soul submerged in sleep
is hard at work and helps
make something of the world. ~ Heraclitus,#KEYS
79:All wisdom is one: to understand the spirit that rules all by all. ~ Heraclitus, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
80:Everything is a poise of contrary energies. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, Heraclitus - IV, #KEYS
81:No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man." ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
82:Wisdom is one thing, to know how to make true judgment, how all things are steered through all things. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
83:It ever was, and is, and shall be, ever-living fire, in measures being kindled and in measures going out. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
84:And some men are as ignorant of what they do when awake as they are forgetful of what they do when asleep. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
85:What we have caught and what we have killed we have left behind, but what has escaped us we bring with us. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
86:ll is movement and nothing is fixed; we cannot cross over the same stream twice. ~ Heraclitus, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
87:Eye and ear are poor witnesses for man, if his inner life has not been made fine. ~ Heraclitus, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
88:Energy distributes itself, but never really dissipates itself. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, Heraclitus - V, #KEYS
89:No human law is the absolute expression of the divine justice, ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, Heraclitus - VI, #KEYS
90:This cosmos… was, is, and always will be every living fire, kindled in measures and quenched in the measures. ~ Heraclitus, Fr. 30, #KEYS
91:It is wise to listen, not to me but to the Word, and to confess that all things are one. ~ Heraclitus, On the Universe,1 fragment 1, #KEYS
92:Many who have learned from Hesiod the countless names of gods and monsters never understand that night and day are one ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
93:To be evenminded
is the greatest virtue.
Wisdom is to speak
the truth and act
in keeping with its nature. ~ Heraclitus,#KEYS
94:Contraries harmonise with each other; the finest harmony springs from things that are unlike. ~ Heraclitus, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
95: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, #KEYS
96: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, #KEYS
97:From exchange we can rise to the highest possible idea of interchange. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, Heraclitus - VII, #KEYS
98:For the waking there is only one common world...During sleepeach turns towards his own particular world. ~ Heraclitus, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
99:The cosmos is eternally one and many and does not by becoming cease to be one. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, Heraclitus - III, #KEYS
100:Being is an eternal becoming and yet the Becoming resolves itself into eternal being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, Heraclitus - II, #KEYS
101:This world . . . ever was, and is, and shall be, ever-living Fire, in measures being kindled and in measures going out. ~ Heraclitus, On the Universe, 20, #KEYS
102:All things circle back to the eternal unity and in their beginning and end are the same. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, Heraclitus - VI, #KEYS
103:Change and unalterable conservation of energy in the change are the law, not destruction. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, Heraclitus - V, #KEYS
104:Life and death, waking and sleep, youth and age are one and the same thing, for one changes .into the other, that into this. ~ Heraclitus, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
105:There is an identity in things, in all existences, sarvabhūtāni, as well as a constant changing. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, Heraclitus - III, #KEYS
106: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, #KEYS
107:Brahman is willing to be called Vishnu, and yet he is not willing, because he is also Brahma and Maheshwara. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, Heraclitus - VI, #KEYS
108:Try, but thou shalt not find the frontiers of the soul even if thou scourest all its ways; so profound is the extension of its reasoning being. ~ Heraclitus, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
109:That the world is a divine game and beyond good and evil: in this the Vedanta and Heraclitus are my predecessors. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, Quoted in Johannes Klein, Die Dichtung Nietzsches (Munich, 1936), p. 225, #KEYS
110: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, #KEYS
111:Out of every one-hundred men, ten shouldn't even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one -- one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back. ~ Heraclitus, #KEYS
112:This universal order is the same for everything; neither God nor man has created it; it has always been, it is and will be always an eternally living Fire which kindles itself periodically and is again extinguished. ~ Heraclitus, the Eternal Wisdom #KEYS
113: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, ( c. 535 - c. 475 BC) pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, believed that change is fundamental essence of the universe, Wikipedia., #KEYS
114:reading :::
50 Philosophy Classics: List of Books Covered:
1. Hannah Arendt - The Human Condition (1958)
2. Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics (4th century BC)
3. AJ Ayer - Language, Truth and Logic (1936)
4. Julian Baggini - The Ego Trick (2011)
5. Jean Baudrillard - Simulacra and Simulation (1981)
6. Simone de Beauvoir - The Second Sex (1952)
7. Jeremy Bentham - Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789)
8. Henri Bergson - Creative Evolution (1911)
9. David Bohm - Wholeness and the Implicate Order (1980)
10. Noam Chomsky - Understanding Power (2002)
11. Cicero - On Duties (44 BC)
12. Confucius - Analects (5th century BC)
13. Rene Descartes - Meditations (1641)
14. Ralph Waldo Emerson - Fate (1860)
15. Epicurus - Letters (3rd century BC)
16. Michel Foucault - The Order of Things (1966)
17. Harry Frankfurt - On Bullshit (2005)
18. Sam Harris - Free Will (2012)
19. GWF Hegel - Phenomenology of Spirit (1803)
20. Martin Heidegger - Being and Time (1927)
21. Heraclitus - Fragments#KEYS
115:(Novum Organum by Francis Bacon.)
34. "Four species of idols beset the human mind, to which (for distinction's sake) we have assigned names, calling the first Idols of the Tribe, the second Idols of the Den, the third Idols of the Market, the fourth Idols of the Theatre.
40. "The information of notions and axioms on the foundation of true induction is the only fitting remedy by which we can ward off and expel these idols. It is, however, of great service to point them out; for the doctrine of idols bears the same relation to the interpretation of nature as that of the confutation of sophisms does to common logic.
41. "The idols of the tribe are inherent in human nature and the very tribe or race of man; for man's sense is falsely asserted to be the standard of things; on the contrary, all the perceptions both of the senses and the mind bear reference to man and not to the Universe, and the human mind resembles these uneven mirrors which impart their own properties to different objects, from which rays are emitted and distort and disfigure them.
42. "The idols of the den are those of each individual; for everybody (in addition to the errors common to the race of man) has his own individual den or cavern, which intercepts and corrupts the light of nature, either from his own peculiar and singular disposition, or from his education and intercourse with others, or from his reading, and the authority acquired by those whom he reverences and admires, or from the different impressions produced on the mind, as it happens to be preoccupied and predisposed, or equable and tranquil, and the like; so that the spirit of man (according to its several dispositions), is variable, confused, and, as it were, actuated by chance; and Heraclitus said well that men search for knowledge in lesser worlds, and not in the greater or common world.
43. "There are also idols formed by the reciprocal intercourse and society of man with man, which we call idols of the market, from the commerce and association of men with each other; for men converse by means of language, but words are formed at the will of the generality, and there arises from a bad and unapt formation of words a wonderful obstruction to the mind. Nor can the definitions and explanations with which learned men are wont to guard and protect themselves in some instances afford a complete remedy-words still manifestly force the understanding, throw everything into confusion, and lead mankind into vain and innumerable controversies and fallacies.
44. "Lastly, there are idols which have crept into men's minds from the various dogmas of peculiar systems of philosophy, and also from the perverted rules of demonstration, and these we denominate idols of the theatre: for we regard all the systems of philosophy hitherto received or imagined, as so many plays brought out and performed, creating fictitious and theatrical worlds. Nor do we speak only of the present systems, or of the philosophy and sects of the ancients, since numerous other plays of a similar nature can be still composed and made to agree with each other, the causes of the most opposite errors being generally the same. Nor, again, do we allude merely to general systems, but also to many elements and axioms of sciences which have become inveterate by tradition, implicit credence, and neglect. ~ Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity,#KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:Everything flows. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 2:Everything is in flux. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 3:What are men? Mortal gods. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 4:Change alone is unchanging. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 5:Change is the only constant. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 6:What are gods? Immortal men. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 7:What was scattered, gathers. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 8:What was gathered, blows away ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 9:A dry soul is wisest and best. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 10:A man's character is his fate. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 11:Even a soul submerged in sleep ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 12:Knowledge is not intelligence. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 13:Night, Impossible, Distinction ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 14:Understanding, Listening, Deaf ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 15:Materialism, Invisible, Harmony ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 16:Nature is wont to hide herself. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 17:A fool is excited by every word. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 18:All things flow, nothing abides. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 19:One's bearing shapes one's fate. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 20:War is the mother of everything. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 21:All is flux, nothing stays still. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 22:Any day stands equal to the rest. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 23:Nothing is constant except change ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 24:The only thing constant is change ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 25:All things are in a state of flux. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 26:Big results require big ambitions. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 27:Everything flows; nothing remains. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 28:War is the father and king of all. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 29:All is flux, nothing is stationary. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 30:Everything flows and nothing stays. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 31:Much learning does not teach sense. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 32:Nothing is, everything is becoming. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 33:The only constant in life is change ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 34:Everything flows and nothing abides. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 35:Greater dooms win greater destinies. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 36:Nature is accustomed to hide itself. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 37:The seeing have the world in common. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 38:Things Couples All Things Discordant ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 39:and is, and will be everlasting fire, ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 40:The sun is the width of a human foot. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 41:Everything flows, nothing stays still. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 42:The image will be downloaded by Fatkun ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 43:Tis not too late to seek a newer world ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 44:It is in changing that we find purpose. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 45:Dogs bark at what they don't understand. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 46:Not I but the world says it: All is one. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 47:There is nothing peranent except change. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 48:Invisible harmony is better than visible. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 49:The fairest harmony springs from discord. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 50:The path up and down is one and the same. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 51:Day by day, what you do is who you become. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 52:Dogs, also, bark at what they do not know. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 53:Knowing many things doesn't teach insight. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 54:Life is a child moving counters in a game. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 55:You cannot step twice into the same river. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 56:A man's character is his guardian divinity. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 57:Eyes are more accurate witnesses than ears. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 58:For those who are awake, the Cosmos is One. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 59:How can you hide from what never goes away? ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 60:It is in changing that things find purpose. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 61:Much learning does not teach understanding. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 62:The phases of fire are craving and satiety. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 63:The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 64:You can never step in the same river twice. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 65:All entities move and nothing remains still. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 66:Everything changes and nothing stands still. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 67:It is wise to agree that all things are one. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 68:Everything gives way and nothing stays fixed. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 69:The hidden harmony is better than the obvious. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 70:Time is a game played beautifully by children. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 71:All human laws are nourished by one divine law. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 72:One thunderbolt strikes root through everything ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 73:The results are in great need greater ambition. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 74:The eyes are more exact witnesses than the ears. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 75:Learning many things does not teach understanding ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 76:Religion is a disease, but it is a noble disease. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 77:Stupidity is better kept a secret than displayed. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 78:The way up and the way down are one and the same. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 79:Wisdom consists in speaking and acting the truth. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 80:Those who love wisdom must investigate many things ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 81:To God all things are beautiful and good and just. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 82:Corpses are more fit to be thrown out than is dung. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 83:Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 84:Presumption must be quenched even more than a fire. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 85:The gods are immortal men, and men are mortal gods. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 86:The road up and the road down are one and the same. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 87:We circle in the night and we are devoured by fire. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 88:A hidden connection is stronger than an obvious one. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 89:All things come into being by conflict of opposites. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 90:It is better to conceal ignorance than to expose it. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 91:Thinking is a sacred disease and sight is deceptive. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 92:Abundance of knowledge does not teach men to be wise. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 93:It is harder to fight pleasure than to fight emotion. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 94:Deliberate violence is more to be quenched than a fire ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 95:Life has the name of life, but in reality it is death. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 96:There is nothing permanent in the world except change. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 97:He who hears not me but the logos will say: All is one. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 98:It is not appropriate to act and speak like men asleep. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 99:Man, like a light in the night, is kindled and put out. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 100:What are men? Mortal gods. What are gods? Immortal men. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 101:The people must fight for their laws as for their walls. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 102:To me one man is worth ten thousand if he is first-rate. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 103:Without injustices, the name of justice would mean what? ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 104:Applicants for wisdom do what I have done: inquire within ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 105:Give me one man from among ten thousand if he is the best ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 106:If it were not for injustice, men would not know justice. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 107:More Power. Less Weight. More Agility. Ride a Harley Now! ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 108:What was scattered gathers. What was gathered blows away. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 109:If we do not expect the unexpected, we will never find it. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 110:The nature of things is in the habit of concealing itself. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 111:The outcomes are in incredible need more prominent desire. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 112:Bigotry is the sacred disease, and self-conceit tells lies. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 113:The people should fight for the law as for their city wall. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 114:The fairest order in the world is a heap of random sweepings. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 115:All things come out of the one, and the one out of all things. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 116:Ever-newer waters flow on those who step into the same rivers. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 117:Eyes and ears are bad witnesses to men having barbarian souls. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 118:Justice will overtake fabricators of lies and false witnesses. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 119:Under the comb, the tangle and the straight path are the same. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 120:You won't discover the limits of the soul, however far you go. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 121:The universal cosmic process was not created by any god or man. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 122:No one that encounters prosperity does not also encounter danger. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 123:Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 124:What is divine escapes men's notice because of their incredulity. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 125:Hide our ignorance as we will, an evening of wine soon reveals it. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 126:Because it is so unbelievable, the Truth often escapes being known. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 127:It would not be better if things happened to men just as they wish. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 128:The Cosmos was not made by gods but always was and is eternal fire. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 129:Wisdom is the oneness of mind that guides and permeated all things. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 130:Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 131:The unexpected connection is more powerful than one that is obvious. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 132:Time is a child playing with droughts. The lordship is to the child. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 133:Aion is a child at play, playing draughts; the kingship is a child's. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 134:Men that love wisdom must be acquainted with very many things indeed. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 135:People ought to fight to keep their law as to defend the city s walls. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 136:Stupidity is doomed, therefore, to cringe at every syllable of wisdom. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 137:Things of which there is sight, hearing, apprehension, these I prefer. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 138:The people must fight on behalf of the law as though for the city wall. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 139:Eyes and ears are poor witnesses to people if they have uncultured souls. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 140:Knowledge of divine things for the most part is lost to us by incredulity. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 141:The soul is undiscovered though explored forever to a depth beyond report. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 142:All men have the capacity of knowing themselves and acting with moderation. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 143:God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, surfeit and hunger. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 144:Even sleepers are workers and collaborators in what goes on in the Universe. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 145:Men who love wisdom should acquaint themselves with a great many particulars. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 146:All things come into being through opposition and all are in flux like a river ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 147:Eternity is a child playing, playing checkers; the kingdom belongs to a child. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 148:The awake share a common world, but the asleep turn aside into private worlds. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 149:If you do not expect the unexpected, you will not recognize it when it arrives. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 150:Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 151:You may travel far and wide but never will you find the boundaries of the soul. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 152:Though wisdom is common, yet the many live as if they had a wisdom of their own. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 153:Whoever cannot seek the unforeseen sees nothing for the known way is an impasse. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 154:It is difficult to fight against anger; for a man will buy revenge with his soul. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 155:The Lord whose oracle is at Delphi neither reveals nor conceals, but gives a sign ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 156:There is harmony in the tension of opposites, as in the case of the bow and lyre. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 157:As Meander says, "For our mind is God;" and as Heraclitus, "Man's genius is a deity. ~ plutarch, @wisdomtrove 158:Everything flows and nothing abides. Everything gives way and nothing stays fixed. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 159:It is better to hide ignorance, but it is hard to do this when we relax over wine. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 160:We are most nearly ourselves when we achieve the seriousness of the child at play. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 161:Men who wish to know about the world must learn about it in its particular details. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 162:The waking have one world in common; sleepers have each a private world of his own. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 163:The wise is one only. It is unwilling and willing to be called by the name of Zeus. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 164:Lifetime is a child at play, moving pieces in a game. Kingship belongs to the child. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 165:Time is a child playing a game of draughts; the kingship is in the hands of a child. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 166:Even a soul submerged in sleep is hard at work and helps make something of the world. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 167:It is weariness to keep toiling at the same things so that one becomes ruled by them. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 168:Men who are lovers of wisdom [i.e., philosophers] must be inquirers into many things. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 169:The chain of wedlock is so heavy that it takes two to carry it - and sometimes three. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 170:When men dream, each has his own world. When they are awake, they have a common world. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 171:And it is the same thing in us that is quick and dead, awake and asleep, young and old. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 172:The unlike is joined together, and from differences results the most beautiful harmony. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 173:You cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters are continually flowing on. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 174:It is wise to listen, not to me but to the Word, and to confess that all things are one. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 175:The world is nothing but a great desire to live and a great dissatisfaction with living. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 176:Could you tell night from day? No, I regard all such distinctions as logically impossible. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 177:Immortal mortals, mortal immortals, one living the others death and dying the others life. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 178:The waking have one common world, but the sleeping turn aside each into a world of his own ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 179:He who does not expect will not find out the unexpected, for it is trackless and unexplored ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 180:The only constant is change. Unless you get a small group of neighbors together to stop it. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 181:The river where you set your foot just now is gone-those waters give way to this, now this. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 182:You could not step twice into the same rivers; for other waters are ever flowing on to you. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 183:Where there is no strife there is decay: & 184:Knowledge of divine things for the most part, as Heraclitus says, is lost to us by incredulity. ~ plutarch, @wisdomtrove 185:To God all things are fair and good and right, but men hold some things wrong and some right. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 186:Those who are awake all live in the same world. Those who are asleep live in their own worlds. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 187:Of all whose words I have heard, no one attains to this, to know that wisdom is apart from all. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 188:No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 189:No same man could walk through the same river twice, as the man and the river have since changed. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 190:War is the father and king of all: some he has made gods, and some men; some slaves and some free. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 191:Traveling on every path, you will not find the boundaries of soul by going; so deep is its measure. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 192:Doctors cut, burn, and torture the sick, and then demand of them an undeserved fee for such services. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 193:From out of all the many particulars comes oneness, and out of oneness come all the many particulars. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 194:Wisdom is one thing, to know how to make true judgment, how all things are steered through all things. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 195:May you have plenty of wealth, you men of Ephesus, in order that you may be punished for your evil ways ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 196:Nothing endures but change. There is nothing permanent except change. All is flux, nothing stays still. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 197:Unless you expect the unexpected you will never find it, for it is hard to discover and hard to attain. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 198:If you do not expect the unexpected, you will not find it; for it is hard to be sought out and difficult. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 199:If you do not expect the unexpected you will not find it, for it is not to be reached by search or trail. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 200:It ever was, and is, and shall be, ever-living fire, in measures being kindled and in measures going out. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 201:To be evenminded is the greatest virtue. Wisdom is to speak the truth and act in keeping with its nature. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 202:And some men are as ignorant of what they do when awake as they are forgetful of what they do when asleep. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 203:What we have caught and what we have killed we have left behind, but what has escaped us we bring with us. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 204:I am what libraries and librarians have made me, with little assistance from a professor of Greek and poets ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 205:Those who approach life like a child playing a game, moving and pushing pieces, possess the power of kings. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 206:If you do not hope, you will not win that which is not hoped for, since it is unattainable and inaccessible. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 207:Those unmindful when they hear, for all they make of their intelligence, may be regarded as the walking dead. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 208:Those who hear and do not understand are like the deaf. Of them the proverb says: "Present, they are absent." ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 209:One must know that war is common, justice is strife, and everything happens according to strife and necessity. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 210:To God everything is beautiful, good, and just; humans, however, think some things are unjust and others just. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 211:What sense or thought do they have? They follow the popular singers, and they take the crowd as their teacher. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 212: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, @wisdomtrove 213:Even what those with the greatest reputation for knowing it all claim to understand and defend are but opinions. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 214:It is by disease that health is pleasant; by evil that good is pleasant; by hunger, satiety; by weariness, rest. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 215:Realize that war is common and justice is strife, and that all things come into being and pass away through strife. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 216:The best people renounce all for one goal, the eternal fame of mortals; but most people stuff themselves like cattle. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 217:The opposite is beneficial; from things that differ comes the fairest attunement; all things are born through strife. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 218:This world... ever was, and is, and shall be, ever-living Fire, in measures being kindled and in measures going out. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 219:History is a child building a sand-castle by the sea, and that child is the whole majesty of man's power in the world. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 220:Many who have learned from Hesiod the countless names of gods and monsters never understand that night and day are one ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 221:There is but one world common for those who are awake, but when men are asleep, each turns away into a world of his own. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 222:There is exchange of all things for fire and of fire for all things, as there is of wares for gold and of gold for wares. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 223:Other men are unaware of what they do when they are awake just as they are forgetful of what they do when they are asleep. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 224: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, @wisdomtrove 225: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, @wisdomtrove 226:If one does not expect the unexpected, one will not find it out, since it is not to be searched out, and difficut to compass. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 227:It is necessary to understand that war is common, strife is customary, and all things happen because of strife and necessity. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 228:The poet was a fool who wanted no conflict among us, gods or people. Harmony needs low and high, as progeny needs man and woman. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 229:We must realize that war is universal and strife is justice, and that all things come into the world and pass away through strife. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 230: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, @wisdomtrove 231:Men forget where the way leads and what they meet with every day seems strange to them.We should not act and speak like men asleep. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 232:Couples are wholes and not wholes, what agrees disagrees, the concordant is discordant. From all things one and from one all things. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 233: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, @wisdomtrove 234:If you went in search of it, you would not find the boundaries of the soul, though you traveled every road-so deep is its measure [logos]. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 235:People do not know how what is at variance agrees with itself. It is an attunement of opposite tensions, like that of the bow and the lyre. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 236:Both Empedocles and Heraclitus held it for a truth that man could not be altogether cleared from injustice in dealing with beasts as he now does. ~ plutarch, @wisdomtrove 237:Follow AzQuotes on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Every day we present the best quotes! Improve yourself, find your inspiration, share with friends ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 238: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, @wisdomtrove 239: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, @wisdomtrove 240:There is nothing permanent except change. Therefore enjoy what good you have while you have it and endure and outlast what bad you can't cure immediately. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 241: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, @wisdomtrove 242: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, @wisdomtrove 243: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, @wisdomtrove 244: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, @wisdomtrove 245: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, @wisdomtrove 246:There is nothing permanent except change. Nothing is permanent except change. The only constant is change. Change is the only constant. Change alone is unchanging. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 247: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, @wisdomtrove 248: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, @wisdomtrove 249:Always having what we want may not be the best good fortune Health seems sweetest after sickness, food in hunger, goodness in the wake of evil, and at the end of daylong labor sleep. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 250:Everything changes but change itself. Everything flows and nothing remains the same... You cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters and yet others go flowing ever on. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 251:A drunk man, staggering and mindless, must be led home by his son, so wet is his psyche... Water brings death to the psyche, as earth brings death to water... The psyche lusts to be wet. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 252: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 ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 253:The majority of people have no understanding of the things with which they daily meet, nor, when instructed, do they have any right knowledge of them, although to themselves they seem to have. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 254:The world, an entity out of everything, was created by none of the gods or men, but was, is and will be eternally living fire, regularly becoming ignited and reg- ularly becoming extinguished. ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 255: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, @wisdomtrove 256: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, @wisdomtrove 257: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, @wisdomtrove 258: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, @wisdomtrove 259:For when is death not within our selves? And as Heracleitus says: “Living and dead are the same, and so are awake and asleep, young and old. The former when shifted are the latter, and again the latter when shifted are the former." ~ heraclitus, @wisdomtrove 260:The parallels to modern physics [with mysticism] appear not only in the Vedas of Hinduism, in the I Ching, or in the Buddhist sutras, but also in the fragments of Heraclitus, in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, or in the teachings of the Yaqui sorcerer Don Juan. ~ fritjof-capra, @wisdomtrove 261:For, in the language of Heraclitus, the virtuous soul is pure and unmixed light, springing from the body as a flash of lightning darts from the cloud. But the soul that is carnal and immersed in sense, like a heavy and dank vapor, can with difficulty be kindled, and caused to raise its eyes heavenward. ~ plutarch, @wisdomtrove 262: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, @wisdomtrove 263: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, @wisdomtrove 264: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, @wisdomtrove 265: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, @wisdomtrove 266: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, @wisdomtrove 267:I believe that even a smattering of such findings in modern science and mathematics is far more compelling and exciting than most of the doctrines of pseudoscience, whose practitioners were condemned as early as the fifth century B.C. by the Ionian philosopher Heraclitus as ‚Äúnigh -walkers, magicians, priests of Bacchus, priestesses of the wine-vat, mystery-mongers.‚Äù But science is more intricate and subtle, reveals a much richer imiverse, and powerfully evokes our sense of wonder. ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove 268:Five hundred years before Christ was born, the Greek philosopher Heraclitus told his students that everything changes except the law of change". He said: "You cannot step in the same river twice." The river changes every second; and so does the man who stepped in it. Life is a ceaseless change. The only certainty is today. Why mar the beauty of living today by trying to solve the problems of a future that is shrouded in ceaseless change and uncertainty-a future that no one can possibly foretell? ~ dale-carnegie, @wisdomtrove 269:Five hundred years before Christ was born, the Greek philosopher Heraclitus told his students that "everything changes except the law of change". He said: "You cannot step in the same river twice." The river changes every second; and so does the man who stepped in it. Life is a ceaseless change. The only certainty is today. Why mar the beauty of living today by trying to solve the problems of a future that is shrouded in ceaseless change and uncertainty-a future that no one can possibly foretell? ~ dale-carnegie, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:Character is destiny ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
2:Character is destiny. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
3:Nature loves to hide. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
4:Applicants for wisdom ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
5:Character is destiny. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
6:Everything is in flux. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
7:Nature loves to hide. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
8:The sun is new each day. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
9:Character is our destiny. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
10:The sun is new each day. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
11:Nothing endures but change ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
12:Things keep their secrets. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
13:Thinking is common to all. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
14:Change alone is unchanging. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
15:Nothing endures but change. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
16:Things keep their secrets. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
17:What are men? Mortal gods. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
18:Change is the only constant. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
19:Man's character is his fate. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
20:The only constant is change. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
21:What are men? Mortal gods. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
22:Asses prefer garbage to gold. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
23:Character is fate. (Destiny). ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
24:Man is on earth as in an egg. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
25:What was scattered, gathers. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
26:A dry soul is wisest and best. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
27:A man's character is his fate. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
28:Asses prefer garbage to gold. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
29:Knowledge is not intelligence. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
30:Man is on earth as in an egg. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
31:What was scattered, gathers. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
32:A dry soul is wisest and best. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
33:A man's character is his fate. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
34:Even a soul submerged in sleep ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
35:Knowledge is not intelligence. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
36:Nature is wont to hide herself. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
37:A fool is excited by every word. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
38:All things flow, nothing abides. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
39:War is the father of all things. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
40:War is the mother of everything. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
41:A fool is excited by every word. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
42:All is flux; nothing stays still. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
43:Human opinions are playthings. ~ Heraclitus 88, #NFDB
44:Nothing is constant except change ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
45:The only thing constant is change ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
46:War is the father of all things. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
47:All is flux; nothing stays still. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
48:All things are in a state of flux. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
49:Big results require big ambitions. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
50:It is better to conceal ignorance. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
51:War is the father and king of all. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
52:All is flux, nothing is stationary. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
53:Everything flows and nothing stays. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
54:Much learning does not teach sense. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
55:Nothing is, everything is becoming. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
56:The only constant in life is change ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
57:Yolun gittiği yeri unutanı hatırla. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
58:Change is the only constant in life. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
59:Greater dooms win greater destinies. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
60:Much learning does not teach sense. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
61:Nature is accustomed to hide itself. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
62:The seeing have the world in common. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
63:Any day stands
equal to the rest. ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
64:Greater dooms win greater destinies. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
65:Nada é permanente, excepto a mudança. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
66:The seeing have the world in common. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
67:The sun is the width of a human foot. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
68:Everything flows, nothing stays still. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
69:The sun is new every day. (Fragment 6) ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
70:Tis not too late to seek a newer world ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
71:Dog bark at what they don't understand. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
72:How many things are lost to disbelief!! ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
73:It is in changing that we find purpose. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
74:Dogs bark at what they don't understand. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
75:It is in changing that we find purpose. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
76:Not I but the world says it: All is one. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
77:There is nothing peranent except change. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
78:Invisible harmony is better than visible. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
79:The fairest harmony springs from discord. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
80:The Only Thing That Is Constant Is Change ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
81:The path up and down is one and the same. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
82:There is nothing permanent except change. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
83:Day by day, what you do is who you become. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
84:Dogs, also, bark at what they do not know. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
85:Knowing many things doesn't teach insight. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
86:Life is a child moving counters in a game. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
87:The only thing that is constant is change. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
88:The path up and down is one and the same. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
89:there is nothing permanent except change-- ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
90:You cannot step into the same river twice. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
91:You cannot step twice into the same river. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
92:Eyes are more accurate witnesses than ears. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
93:For those who are awake, the Cosmos is One. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
94:How can you hide from what never goes away? ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
95:It is in changing that things find purpose. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
96:Much learning does not teach understanding. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
97:The Only Thing That Is Constant Is Change - ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
98:The phases of fire are craving and satiety. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
99:The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
100:You can never step in the same river twice. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
101:You can not step into the same river twice. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
102:All entities move and nothing remains still. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
103:Dogs bark at a person whom they do not know. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
104:Everything changes and nothing stands still. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
105:How can you hide from what never goes away? ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
106:It is wise to agree that all things are one. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
107:The phases of fire are craving and satiety. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
108:The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
109:The track of writing is straight and crooked. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
110:The unseen harmony is better than the visible ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
111:Change alone is unchanging. —Heraclitus ~ Philip G Zimbardo, #NFDB
112:Time is a game played beautifully by children. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
113:Latent structure is master of obvious structure ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
114:The results are in great need greater ambition. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
115:Time is a game played beautifully by children. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
116:Latent structure is master of obvious structure ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
117:One man is worth thousand if he is extraordinary ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
118:Everything flows and nothing abides HERACLITUS ~ James Bradley, #NFDB
119:I have been in love with the thought of Heraclitus. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
120:Learning many things does not teach understanding ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
121:One man is worth thousand if he is extraordinary ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
122:Religion is a disease, but it is a noble disease. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
123:Stupidity is better kept a secret than displayed. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
124:The way up and the way down are one and the same. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
125:The way upward and the way downward are the same. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
126:War is the father of all things.” —Heraclitus ~ Annie Jacobsen, #NFDB
127:What allows us to be human is something daemonic. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
128:Wisdom consists in speaking and acting the truth. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
129:One ought not to act and speak like people asleep. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
130:One thunderbolt strikes
root through everything ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
131:Those who love wisdom must investigate many things ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
132:To God all things are beautiful and good and just. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
133:What allows us to be human is something daemonic. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
134:Wisdom consists in speaking and acting the truth. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
135:Corpses are more fit to be thrown out than is dung. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
136:[Heraclitus had] a regal air of certainty. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
137:Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
138:One ought not to act and speak like people asleep. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
139:Presumption must be quenched even more than a fire. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
140:The content of your # character is your # choice. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
141:The gods are immortal men, and men are mortal gods. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
142:The habit of knowledge
is not human but devine. ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
143:To God all things are beautiful and good and just. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
144:We circle in the night and we are devoured by fire. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
145:A hidden connection is stronger than an obvious one. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
146:All things come into being by conflict of opposites. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
147:It is better to conceal ignorance than to expose it. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
148:Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
149:The gods are immortal men, and men are mortal gods. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
150:The habit of knowledge
is not human but devine. ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
151:Thinking is a sacred disease and sight is deceptive. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
152:We circle in the night and we are devoured by fire. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
153:Abundance of knowledge does not teach men to be wise. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
154:A hidden connection is stronger than an obvious one. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
155:It is harder to fight pleasure than to fight emotion. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
156:Thinking is a sacred disease and sight is deceptive. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
157:Abundance of knowledge does not teach men to be wise. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
158:Deliberate violence is more to be quenched than a fire ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
159:Ethos anthropoi daimon--a man's character is his fate. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
160:It is harder to fight pleasure than to fight emotion. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
161:Life has the name of life, but in reality it is death. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
162:There is nothing permanent in the world except change. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
163:He who hears not me but the logos will say: All is one. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
164:It is not appropriate to act and speak like men asleep. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
165:Man, like a light in the night, is kindled and put out. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
166:Man, like a light in the night, is kindled and put out. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
167:The people must fight for their laws as for their walls. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
168:To me one man is worth ten thousand if he is first-rate. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
169:All men participate in the possibility of self-knowledge. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
170:as Heraclitus prophesied, “character determines fate. ~ David Rothkopf, #NFDB
171:If it were not for injustice, men would not know justice. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
172:Stupidity is better
kept a secret
than displayed. ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
173:The people must fight for their laws as for their walls. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
174:To me one man is worth ten thousand if he is first-rate. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
175:What was scattered gathers. What was gathered blows away. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
176:You cannot step twice in the same river--Heraclitus ~ Jessica B Harris, #NFDB
177:All men participate in the possibility of self-knowledge. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
178:Big results require big ambitions. ~ B L Norris Heraclitus ~ B L Norris, #NFDB
179:If it were not for injustice, men would not know justice. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
180:If we do not expect the unexpected, we will never find it. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
181:The nature of things is in the habit of concealing itself. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
182:The outcomes are in incredible need more prominent desire. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
183:Bigotry is the sacred disease, and self-conceit tells lies. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
184:From the strain
of binding opposites
comes harmony. ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
185:The people should fight for the law as for their city wall. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
186:What are men? Mortal gods.
What are gods? Immortal men. ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
187:The fairest order in the world is a heap of random sweepings. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
188:All things come out of the one, and the one out of all things. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
189:Ever-newer waters flow on those who step into the same rivers. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
190:Eyes and ears are bad witnesses to men having barbarian souls. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
191:Heraclitus was an opponent of all democratic parties. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
192:Justice will overtake fabricators of lies and false witnesses. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
193:Let us not make random conjectures about the greatest matters. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
194:The fairest order in the world is a heap of random sweepings. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
195:Under the comb, the tangle and the straight path are the same. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
196:Without injustices,
the name of justice
would mean what? ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
197:You won't discover the limits of the soul, however far you go. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
198:All things come out of the one, and the one out of all things. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
199:Applicants for wisdom
do what I have done:
inquire within ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
200:Give me one man
from among ten thousand
if he is the best ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
201:Introite, nam et heic Dii sunt! (Enter, for here too are gods.) ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
202:The universal cosmic process was not created by any god or man. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
203:thos anthrpōi daímōn Character for man is fate. Heraclitus ~ Nicholas Ostler, #NFDB
204:Under the comb, the tangle and the straight path are the same. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
205:Without injustices,
the name of justice
would mean what? ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
206:You won't discover the limits of the soul, however far you go. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
207:Everything flows, nothing stands still."
Heraclitus, 501 B.C. ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
208:No one that encounters prosperity does not also encounter danger. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
209:Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
210:What is divine escapes men's notice because of their incredulity. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
211:All wisdom is one: to understand the spirit that rules all by all. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
212:Hide our ignorance as we will, an evening of wine soon reveals it. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
213:What was scattered
gathers.
What was gathered
blows away. ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
214:All wisdom is one: to understand the spirit that rules all by all. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
215:Because it is so unbelievable, the Truth often escapes being known. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
216:Because it is so unbelievable, the truth often escapes being known. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
217:It would not be better if things happened to men just as they wish. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
218:The Cosmos was not made by gods but always was and is eternal fire. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
219:Under the comb
the tangle and the straight path
are the same. ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
220:Wisdom is the oneness of mind that guides and permeated all things. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
221:Wisdom is the oneness of mind that guides and permeates all things. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
222:Give me one man
from among ten thousands,
if he be the best. ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
223:It would not be better if things happened to men just as they wish. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
224:Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
225:The unexpected connection is more powerful than one that is obvious. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
226:Time is a child playing with droughts. The lordship is to the child. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
227:Wisdom is the oneness of mind that guides and permeates all things. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
228:Aion is a child at play, playing draughts; the kingship is a child's. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
229:Men that love wisdom must be acquainted with very many things indeed. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
230:The cosmos works
by harmony of tensions,
like the lyre and bow. ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
231:Men that love wisdom must be acquainted with very many things indeed. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
232:People ought to fight to keep their law as to defend the city s walls. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
233:The oneness of all wisdom may be found, or not, under the name of God. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
234:Things of which there is sight, hearing, apprehension, these I prefer. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
235:Gods live past our meager death.
We die past their ceaseless living. ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
236:The most beautiful arrangement is a pile of things poured out at random ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
237:The oneness of all wisdom may be found, or not, under the name of God. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
238:The people must fight on behalf of the law as though for the city wall. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
239:Eyes and ears are poor witnesses to people if they have uncultured souls. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
240:Knowledge of divine things for the most part is lost to us by incredulity. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
241:All men have the capacity of knowing themselves and acting with moderation. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
242:God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, surfeit and hunger. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
243:All men have the capacity of knowing themselves and acting with moderation. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
244:Even sleepers are workers and collaborators on what goes on in the universe. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
245:No man ever wrote more eloquently and luminously [than Heraclitus]. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
246:Eternity is like a child playing at draughts; the kingdom belongs to a child. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
247:[Heraclitus speaks as if] in entrancement ... but [also] truthfully. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
248:Men who love wisdom should acquaint themselves with a great many particulars. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
249:No man ever wrote more eloquently and luminously [than Heraclitus]. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
250:People ought to fight
to keep their law
as to defend the citys walls. ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
251:All things come into being through opposition and all are in flux like a river ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
252:Eternity is a child playing, playing checkers; the kingdom belongs to a child. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
253:[Heraclitus speaks as if] in entrancement ... but [also] truthfully. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
254:Men who love wisdom should acquaint themselves with a great many particulars. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
255:The awake share a common world, but the asleep turn aside into private worlds. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
256:All things come into being through opposition and all are in flux like a river ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
257:Eternity is a child playing, playing checkers; the kingdom belongs to a child. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
258:If you do not expect the unexpected, you will not recognize it when it arrives. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
259:Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
260:Stupidity is doomed,
therefore, to cringe
at every syllable
of wisdom. ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
261:The awake share a common world, but the asleep turn aside into private worlds. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
262:To fight with desire is hard: whatever it wishes, it buys at the price of soul. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
263:You may travel far and wide but never will you find the boundaries of the soul. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
264:If you do not expect the unexpected, you will not recognize it when it arrives. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
265:Stupidity is doomed,
therefore, to cringe
at every syllable
of wisdom. ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
266:The soul is undiscovered
though explored forever
to a depth beyond report. ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
267:Though wisdom is common, yet the many live as if they had a wisdom of their own. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
268:To fight with desire is hard: whatever it wishes it buys at the price of a soul. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
269:To fight with desire is hard: whatever it wishes, it buys at the price of soul. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
270:Whoever cannot seek the unforeseen sees nothing for the known way is an impasse. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
271:All is movement and nothing is fixed; we cannot cross over the same stream twice. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
272:Eye and ear are poor witnesses for man, if his inner life has not been made fine. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
273:It is difficult to fight against anger; for a man will buy revenge with his soul. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
274:The Lord whose oracle is at Delphi neither reveals nor conceals, but gives a sign ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
275:There is harmony in the tension of opposites, as in the case of the bow and lyre. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
276:Whoever cannot seek the unforeseen sees nothing, for the known way is an impasse. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
277:Everything flows and nothing abides. Everything gives way and nothing stays fixed. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
278:It is better to hide ignorance, but it is hard to do this when we relax over wine. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
279:Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.
~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
280:We are most nearly ourselves when we achieve the seriousness of the child at play. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
281:Whoever cannot seek the unforeseen sees nothing, for the known way is an impasse. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
282:Yearning hurts,
and what release
may come of it
feels much like death. ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
283:As Meander says, "For our mind is God;" and as Heraclitus, "Man's genius is a deity." ~ Plutarch, #NFDB
284:Men who wish to know about the world must learn about it in its particular details. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
285:The waking have one world in common; sleepers have each a private world of his own. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
286:The wise is one only. It is unwilling and willing to be called by the name of Zeus. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
287:Yearning hurts,
and what release
may come of it
feels much like death. ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
288:As Meander says, "For our mind is God;" and as Heraclitus, "Man's genius is a deity." ~ Plutarch, #NFDB
289:Lifetime is a child at play, moving pieces in a game. Kingship belongs to the child. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
290:The wise is one only. It is unwilling and willing to be called by the name of Zeus. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
291:Time is a child playing a game of draughts; the kingship is in the hands of a child. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
292:It is weariness to keep toiling at the same things so that one becomes ruled by them. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
293:Men who are lovers of wisdom [i.e., philosophers] must be inquirers into many things. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
294:It was Heraclitus' ideas that seized Nietzsche so totally that he became completely mad. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
295:Justice in our minds is strife.
We cannot help but see
war makes us as we are. ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
296:When men dream, each has his own world. When they are awake, they have a common world. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
297:Where there is no strife there is decay: 'The mixture which is not shaken decomposes.' ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
298:It was Heraclitus' ideas that seized Nietzsche so totally that he became completely mad. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
299:The perfect man is a divine child! ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, Heraclitus - VII, #NFDB
300:The unlike is joined together, and from differences results the most beautiful harmony. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
301:You cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters are continually flowing on. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
302:It is wise to listen, not to me but to the Word, and to confess that all things are one. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
303:The world is nothing but a great desire to live and a great dissatisfaction with living. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
304:Could you tell night from day? No, I regard all such distinctions as logically impossible. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
305:Immortal mortals, mortal immortals, one living the others death and dying the others life. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
306:The waking have one common world, but the sleeping turn aside each into a world of his own ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
307:He who does not expect will not find out the unexpected, for it is trackless and unexplored ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
308:The only constant is change. Unless you get a small group of neighbors together to stop it. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
309:The river where you set your foot just now is gone-those waters give way to this, now this. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
310:Even a soul submerged in sleep
is hard at work and helps
make something of the world. ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
311:Non troverai mai la verità se non sei disposto ad accettare anche quello che non ti aspetti. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
312:Contraries harmonise with each other; the finest harmony springs from things that are unlike. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
313:Even a soul submerged in sleep
is hard at work and helps
make something of the world. ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
314:Knowledge of divine things for the most part, as Heraclitus says, is lost to us by incredulity. ~ Plutarch, #NFDB
315:To God all things are fair and good and right, but men hold some things wrong and some right. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
316:Unless you expect the unexpected, you will not find it, for it is hidden and thickly tangled. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
317:[Heraclitus] concluded that coming-to-be itself could not be anything evil or unjust. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
318:Those who are awake all live in the same world. Those who are asleep live in their own worlds. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
319:All things are a-flowing,' sage Heraclitus says, but a tawdry cheapness shall outlast all days. ~ Ezra Pound, #NFDB
320:Everything is a poise of contrary energies. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, Heraclitus - IV, #NFDB
321:[Heraclitus] concluded that coming-to-be itself could not be anything evil or unjust. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
322:Of all whose words I have heard, no one attains to this, to know that wisdom is apart from all. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
323:The Aeon is a child at play with colored balls.
(translation/paraphrase: Terence McKenna) ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
324:Although the Word is common to all, many live as if they had a private understanding of their own ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
325:And so, although I have no lyre, I sing:
For there is a desire, within me - a self-taught hymn ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
326:Heraclitus was proud, and when a philosopher exhibits pride, it is a great pride indeed. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
327:No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
328:No same man could walk through the same river twice, as the man and the river have since changed. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
329:No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river, and it's not the same man. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
330:The road up and the road down is one and the same.
(ὁδὸς ἄνω κάτω μία καὶ ὡυτή)
—Fragment 60 ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
331:War is the father and king of all: some he has made gods, and some men; some slaves and some free. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
332:Traveling on every path, you will not find the boundaries of soul by going; so deep is its measure. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
333:Doctors cut, burn, and torture the sick, and then demand of them an undeserved fee for such services. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
334:From out of all the many particulars comes oneness, and out of oneness come all the many particulars. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
335:If they are gods, why do you lament them? If you lament them, you must no longer regard them as gods. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
336:Wisdom is one thing, to know how to make true judgment, how all things are steered through all things. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
337:[Heraclitus had] pride not in logical knowledge but rather in intuitive grasping of the truth. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
338:May you have plenty of wealth, you men of Ephesus, in order that you may be punished for your evil ways ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
339:Nothing endures but change. There is nothing permanent except change. All is flux, nothing stays still. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
340:Unless you expect the unexpected you will never find it, for it is hard to discover and hard to attain. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
341:Wisdom is one thing, to know how to make true judgment, how all things are steered through all things. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
342:For the waking there is only one common world...During sleepeach turns towards his own particular world. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
343:[Heraclitus had] pride not in logical knowledge but rather in intuitive grasping of the truth. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
344:If you do not expect the unexpected, you will not find it; for it is hard to be sought out and difficult. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
345:It ever was, and is, and shall be, ever-living fire, in measures being kindled and in measures going out. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
346:And some men are as ignorant of what they do when awake as they are forgetful of what they do when asleep. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
347:It ever was, and is, and shall be, ever-living fire, in measures being kindled and in measures going out. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
348:What we have caught and what we have killed we have left behind, but what has escaped us we bring with us. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
349:And some men are as ignorant of what they do when awake as they are forgetful of what they do when asleep. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
350:I am what libraries and librarians have made me, with little assistance from a professor of Greek and poets ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
351:Those who approach life like a child playing a game, moving and pushing pieces, possess the power of kings. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
352:War is father of all, and king of all. He renders some gods, others men; he makes some slaves, others free. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
353:What we have caught and what we have killed we have left behind, but what has escaped us we bring with us. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
354:If you do not hope, you will not win that which is not hoped for, since it is unattainable and inaccessible. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
355:Those unmindful when they hear, for all they make of their intelligence, may be regarded as the walking dead. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
356:Those who hear and do not understand are like the deaf. Of them the proverb says: "Present, they are absent." ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
357:One must know that war is common, justice is strife, and everything happens according to strife and necessity. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
358:To God everything is beautiful, good, and just; humans, however, think some things are unjust and others just. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
359:What sense or thought do they have? They follow the popular singers, and they take the crowd as their teacher. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
360: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, #NFDB
361:Even what those with the greatest reputation for knowing it all claim to understand and defend are but opinions. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
362:It is by disease that health is pleasant; by evil that good is pleasant; by hunger, satiety; by weariness, rest. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
363:The waking have one world
in common. Sleepers
meanwhile turn aside, each
into a darkness of his own. ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
364:Energy distributes itself, but never really dissipates itself. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, Heraclitus - V, #NFDB
365:Everything changes and nothing stands still. Heraclitus of Ephesus, as quoted by Plato in Cratylus (360 BCE) ~ Martin Kleppmann, #NFDB
366:No human law is the absolute expression of the divine justice, ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, Heraclitus - VI, #NFDB
367:Realize that war is common and justice is strife, and that all things come into being and pass away through strife. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
368:This world... ever was, and is, and shall be, ever-living Fire, in measures being kindled and in measures going out. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
369:History is a child building a sandcastle by the sea, and that child is the whole majesty of man's power in the world. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
370:The best people renounce all for one goal, the eternal fame of mortals; but most people stuff themselves like cattle. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
371:The opposite is beneficial; from things that differ comes the fairest attunement; all things are born through strife. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
372:History is a child building a sand-castle by the sea, and that child is the whole majesty of man's power in the world. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
373:Many who have learned from Hesiod the countless names of gods and monsters never understand that night and day are one ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
374:The river
where you set
your foot just now
is gone
those waters―
hiving way to this,
now this. ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
375:To be evenminded
is the greatest virtue.
Wisdom is to speak
the truth and act
in keeping with its nature. ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
376:It is wise to listen, not to me but to the Word, and to confess that all things are one. ~ Heraclitus, On the Universe,1 fragment 1, #NFDB
377:Many who have learned from Hesiod the countless names of gods and monsters never understand that night and day are one ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
378:To be evenminded
is the greatest virtue.
Wisdom is to speak
the truth and act
in keeping with its nature. ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
379:There is but one world common for those who are awake, but when men are asleep, each turns away into a world of his own. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
380:There is exchange of all things for fire and of fire for all things, as there is of wares for gold and of gold for wares. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
381:Other men are unaware of what they do when they are awake just as they are forgetful of what they do when they are asleep. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
382:From exchange we can rise to the highest possible idea of interchange. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, Heraclitus - VII, #NFDB
383:That the world is a divine game and beyond good and evil: in this the Vedanta and Heraclitus are my predecessors. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
384: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, #NFDB
385:Life and death, waking and sleep, youth and age are one and the same thing, for one changes .into the other, that into this. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
386: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, #NFDB
387: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, #NFDB
388:Heraclitus says you cannot step into the same river twice. We can also say that the same river cannot touch us twice! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
389:If one does not expect the unexpected, one will not find it out, since it is not to be searched out, and difficut to compass. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
390:It is necessary to understand that war is common, strife is customary, and all things happen because of strife and necessity. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
391:One must realize that war is common, and justice strife, and that all things come to be through strife and are (so) ordained. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
392: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, #NFDB
393:There's a line from Heraclitus: No man steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man. ~ Tom Rachman, #NFDB
394:He thought of Heraclitus: a man cannot step in the same river twice, for it is not the same river, and he is not the same man. ~ Sharon Guskin, #NFDB
395:Many who have learned
from Hesiod the countless names
of gods and monsters
never understand
that night and day are one ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
396:We must realize that war is universal and strife is justice, and that all things come into the world and pass away through strife. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
397: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, #NFDB
398:Men forget where the way leads and what they meet with every day seems strange to them.We should not act and speak like men asleep. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
399:The cosmos is eternally one and many and does not by becoming cease to be one. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, Heraclitus - III, #NFDB
400:Couples are wholes and not wholes, what agrees disagrees, the concordant is discordant. From all things one and from one all things. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
401:That the world is a divine game and beyond good and evil:Min this the Vedanta philosophy and Heraclitus are my predecessors. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
402:What opposes unites, and the finest attunement stems from things bearing in opposite directions, and all things come about by strife. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
403:Heraclitus called self-deception an awful disease and eyesight a lying sense.” —DIOGENES LAERTIUS, LIVES OF THE EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS, ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
404:The living, though they yearn
for consummation of their fate,
need rest, and in their turn leave
children to fulfil their doom. ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
405:You will not discover the limits of the soul
by traveling, even if you wander over every
conceivable path, so deep is its story. ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
406: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, #NFDB
407:At the sight of what goes on in the world, the most misanthropic of men must end by being amused, and Heraclitus must die laughing. ~ Nicolas Chamfort, #NFDB
408:Being is an eternal becoming and yet the Becoming resolves itself into eternal being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, Heraclitus - II, #NFDB
409:If you went in search of it, you would not find the boundaries of the soul, though you traveled every road-so deep is its measure [logos]. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
410:For souls it is death to become water, and for water death to become earth. Water comes into existence out of earth, and soul out of water. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
411:People do not know how what is at variance agrees with itself. It is an attunement of opposite tensions, like that of the bow and the lyre. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
412: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, #NFDB
413:All things circle back to the eternal unity and in their beginning and end are the same. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, Heraclitus - VI, #NFDB
414:Change and unalterable conservation of energy in the change are the law, not destruction. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, Heraclitus - V, #NFDB
415:This world . . . ever was, and is, and shall be, ever-living Fire, in measures being kindled and in measures going out. ~ Heraclitus, On the Universe, 20, #NFDB
416: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, #NFDB
417:Both Empedocles and Heraclitus held it for a truth that man could not be altogether cleared from injustice in dealing with beasts as he now does. ~ Plutarch, #NFDB
418:Try, but thou shalt not find the frontiers of the soul even if thou scourest all its ways; so profound is the extension of its reasoning being. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
419:War, as father
of all things, and king,
names few
to serve as gods,
and of the rest makes
these men slaves,
those free. ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
420: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, #NFDB
421:There is an identity in things, in all existences, sarvabhūtāni, as well as a constant changing. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, Heraclitus - III, #NFDB
422:The poet was a fool
who wanted no conflict
among us, gods
or people.
Harmony needs
low and high,
as progeny needs
man and woman. ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
423:Again, it is harder to fight with pleasure than with anger, to use Heraclitus' phrase', but both art and virtue are always concerned with what is harder; ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
424: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, #NFDB
425: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, #NFDB
426:Heraclitus, though, more or less wrote in fragments. His body of work is not unlike that of a comedian from the 1950s: it consists mostly of one-liners. ~ Peter Adamson, #NFDB
427:There is nothing permanent except change. [Therefore enjoy what good you have while you have it and endure and outlast what bad you can't cure immediately] ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
428:We think of life as solid and are haunted when time tells us it is a fluid. Old Heraclitus couldn't have stepped in the same river once, let alone twice. ~ Jim Harrison, #NFDB
429:The poet was a fool
who wanted no conflict
among us, gods
or people.
Harmony needs
low and high,
as progeny needs
man and woman. ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
430: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, #NFDB
431: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, #NFDB
432:[Heraclitus' language] dispenses with lightness and artificial decoration, foremost out of disgust for humanity and out of [his own] defiant feeling. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
433: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, #NFDB
434: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, #NFDB
435:Brahman is willing to be called Vishnu, and yet he is not willing, because he is also Brahma and Maheshwara. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, Heraclitus - VI, #NFDB
436:The meaning of the river flowing is not that all things are changing so that we cannot encounter them twice but that some things stay the same only by changing. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
437: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, #NFDB
438: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, #NFDB
439: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, #NFDB
440:Each word of Heraclitus expresses the pride and the majesty of truth, but of truth grasped in intuitions rather than attained by the rope ladder of logic. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
441:There is nothing permanent except change. Nothing is permanent except change. The only constant is change. Change is the only constant. Change alone is unchanging. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
442: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, #NFDB
443: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, #NFDB
444: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, #NFDB
445:I have often said, and oftener think, that this world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel – a solution of why Democritus laughed and Heraclitus wept. ~ Horace Walpole, #NFDB
446:All is flux, nothing stays still, as Heraclitus said. By the time I wrote this, everything has changed in the universe; everything but the taste of the cakes baked at home! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
447:Everything changes but change itself. Everything flows and nothing remains the same... You cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters and yet others go flowing ever on. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
448:A drunk man, staggering and mindless, must be led home by his son, so wet is his psyche... Water brings death to the psyche, as earth brings death to water... The psyche lusts to be wet. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
449: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 ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
450:The majority of people have no understanding of the things with which they daily meet, nor, when instructed, do they have any right knowledge of them, although to themselves they seem to have. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
451:The world, an entity out of everything, was created by none of the gods or men, but was, is and will be eternally living fire, regularly becoming ignited and reg- ularly becoming extinguished. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
452: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, #NFDB
453:But Parmenides and Heraclitus do agree about one thing: everyone else apart from them is completely confused, unaware of the nature of reality. Pre-Socratics were rarely short on self-confidence. ~ Peter Adamson, #NFDB
454:Always having what we want
may not be the best good fortune
Health seems sweetest
after sickness, food
in hunger, goodness
in the wake of evil, and at the end
of daylong labor sleep. ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
455: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, #NFDB
456:The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you choose, what you think, what you do—is who you become. Your integrity is your destiny … it is the light that guides your way. —HERACLITUS ~ Alex Kershaw, #NFDB
457: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, #NFDB
458:This universal order is the same for everything; neither God nor man has created it; it has always been, it is and will be always an eternally living Fire which kindles itself periodically and is again extinguished. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
459: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, #NFDB
460:For when is death not within our selves? And as Heracleitus says: “Living and dead are the same, and so are awake and asleep, young and old. The former when shifted are the latter, and again the latter when shifted are the former." ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
461:Allow yourself to think only those thoughts that match your principles and can bear the bright light of day. Day by day, your choices, your thoughts, your actions fashion the person you become. Your integrity determines your destiny. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
462:But Heraclitus’ most significant contribution to the thought of subsequent authors of mystical philosophy was his establishment of the word, “Logos,” as a term for the immanent presence of God in the world of man’s experience. ~ Swami Abhayananda, #NFDB
463:Out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn't even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
464:All things come into being by conflict of opposites. —HERACLITUS,1 C. 500 BCE Without Contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human existence. —WILLIAM BLAKE,2 C. 1790 ~ Jonathan Haidt, #NFDB
465:Ever heard of Heraclitus?” Varya shakes her head. “Greek philosopher. Character is fate—that’s what he said. They’re bound up, those two, like brothers and sisters. You wanna know the future?” She points at Varya with her free hand. “Look in the mirror. ~ Chloe Benjamin, #NFDB
466:[Heraclitus had] the highest form of pride [stemming] from a certainty of belief in the truth as grasped by himself alone. He brings this form, by its excessive development, into a sublime pathos by involuntary identification of himself with his truth. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
467:The lord whose is the oracle at Delphoi neither utters nor hides his meaning, but shows it by a sign.
The Sibyl, with raving lips uttering things mirthless, unbedizened, and unperfumed, reaches over a thousand years with her voice, thanks to the god in her. ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
468:I set apart with high reverence the name of Heraclitus. When the rest of the philosopher crowd rejected the evidence of the senses because these showed plurality and change, he rejected their evidence because they showed things as if they possessed duration and unity. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
469:Sad? Oh, I don’t see that; nothing in life is worth calling sad. According to Heraclitus, everything is sad; according to Democritus, nothing is sad. The true secret is to take things as they come, and not trouble yourself sufficiently about anything to give it power to trouble you. ~ Ouida, #NFDB
470:The pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Parmenides taught that the only things that are real are things which never change... and the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Heraclitus taught that everything changes. If you superimpose their two views, you get this result: Nothing is real. ~ Philip K Dick, #NFDB
471: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, #NFDB
472:Praise God (or whatever it is) from (if direction exists) whom (if personality exists) all blessings (if that word corresponds to any percept of objective reality) flow (if Heraclitus and Bergson and Einstein are correct in stating that everything is more or less flowing about). ~ Dorothy L Sayers, #NFDB
473:Causality was no longer the hidden demiurge that ruled the universe: down was up, the last was the first, the end was the beginning. Heraclitus had been resurrected from his dung heap, and what he had to show us was the simplest of truths: reality was a yo-yo, change was the only constant. ~ Paul Auster, #NFDB
474:Someone spoke of your death, Heraclitus. It brought me Tears, and I remembered how often together We ran the sun down with talk . . . somewhere You've long been dust, my Halicarnassian friend. But your Nightingales live on. Though the Death world Claws at everything, it will not touch them. ~ Callimachus, #NFDB
475:Your mind is like Heraclitus' river. Your mind, in fact, is like nineteenth-century father of psychology William James' "stream of consciousness," a bubbling, babbling brook. Your mind constantly produces different currents of associations, different swirls of thought, and different moods. ~ Howard Bloom, #NFDB
476:Life is a groundless ground: no sooner does it appear, than it disappears, only to renew itself, then immediately break up and vanish again. It pours forth endlessly, like the river of Heraclitus into which one cannot step twice. If you try to grasp it, it slips away between your fingers. ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
477: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 do is who you become. Your integrity is your destiny - it is the light that guides your way. ~ Heraclitus, #NFDB
478:For, in the language of Heraclitus, the virtuous soul is pure and unmixed light, springing from the body as a flash of lightning darts from the cloud. But the soul that is carnal and immersed in sense, like a heavy and dank vapor, can with difficulty be kindled, and caused to raise its eyes heavenward. ~ Plutarch, #NFDB
479:[Heraclitus] did not require humans or their sort of knowledge, since everything into which one may inquire he despises [as being] in contrast [to his own] inward-turning wisdom. [To him] all learning from others is a sign of nonwisdom, because the wise man focuses his vision on his own intelligence. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
480: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, #NFDB
481:Reason’ is the cause of our falsification of the evidence of the senses. In so far as the senses show becoming, passing away, change, they do not lie.… But Heraclitus will always be right in this, that being is an empty fiction. The ‘apparent’ world is the only one: the ‘real’ world has only been lyingly added… ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
482:If Richard had lived, perhaps... but one cannot look backwards, only forwards. What has passed has passed for ever. What is it Heraclitus says? One Cannot step in the same river twice?' ... 'More or less. I suppose a more accurate way of putting it would be "You can step in the same river but the water will always be new. ~ Kate Atkinson, #NFDB
483:What use are these people's wits, who let themselves be led by speechmakers, in crowds, without considering how many fools and thieves they are among, and how few
choose the good?
The best choose progress toward one thing, a name forever honored by the gods, while others eat their way toward sleep like nameless oxen. ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
484: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, #NFDB
485:Heraclitus, a philosopher born in the Persian Empire back in the fifth century BC, had it right when he wrote about men on the battlefield. “Out of every one hundred men,” he wrote, “ten shouldn’t even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior… ~ David Goggins, #NFDB
486: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, #NFDB
487: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, #NFDB
488:When Heraclitus said that everything passes steadily along, he was not inciting us to make the best of the moment, an idea unseemly to his placid mind, but to pay attention to the pace of things. Each has its own rhythm: the nap of a dog, the procession of the equinoxes, the dances of Lydia, the majestically slow beat of the drums at Dodona, the swift runners at Olympia. ~ Guy Davenport, #NFDB
489: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, #NFDB
490:Sophie couldn't stop smiling. It had to be true that nature was built up of small parts that never changed. At the same time Heraclitus was obviously right in thinking that all forms in nature 'flow'. Because everybody dies, animals die, even a mountain range slowly disintegrates. The point was that the mountain range is made up of tiny indivisible parts that never break up. ~ Jostein Gaarder, #NFDB
491:the art of the novel revealed anything, it was that human nature was the great constant, in any culture, in any place, in any time, and that, as Heraclitus had said two thousand years earlier, a man’s ethos, his way of being in the world, was his daimon, the guiding principle that shaped his life – or, in the pithier, more familiar formulation of the idea, that character was destiny. ~ Salman Rushdie, #NFDB
492:I use [Heraclitus' discovery of] enantiodromia for the emergence of the unconscious opposite in the course of time. This characteristic phenomenon practically always occurs when an extreme, onesided tendency dominates conscious life; in time an equally powerful counterposition is built up, which first inhibits the conscious performance and subsequently breaks through the conscious control. ~ Carl Jung, #NFDB
493:THE ERINYES (the FURIES) are placed by Virgil in the underworld, where they punish evildoers. The Greek poets thought of them chiefly as pursuing sinners on the earth. They were inexorable, but just. Heraclitus says, “Not even the sun will transgress his orbit but the Erinyes, the ministers of justice, overtake him.” They were usually represented as three: Tisiphone, Megaera, and Alecto. ~ Edith Hamilton, #NFDB
494:I must, I must before I die find some way to say the essential thing that is in me, that I have never said yet – a thing that is not love or hate or pity or scorn but the very breath of life... I want to bring back into the world of men some little bit of new wisdom. There is a little wisdom in the world; Heraclitus, Spinoza, and a saying here and there. I want to add to it, even if ever so little. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
495:Of course there was no such thing as a true repetition of anything; ever since the pre-Socratics that had been clear, Heraclitus and his un-twice-steppable river and so on. So habits were not truly iterative, but pseudoiterative. The pattern of the day might be the same, in other words, but the individual events fulfilling the pattern were always a little bit different. Thus there was both pattern and surprise, ~ Kim Stanley Robinson, #NFDB
496:I am an American, Chicago born – Chicago, that somber city – and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted; sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent. But a man's character is his fate, says Heraclitus, and in the end there isn't any way to disguise the nature of the knocks by acoustical work on the door or gloving the knuckles. ~ Saul Bellow, #NFDB
497:We must therefore school ourselves to regard all commonly held vices as not hateful but ridiculous, and we should imitate Democritus rather than Heraclitus. For whenever these went out in public, the latter used to weep and the former to laugh; the latter thought all our activities sorrows, the former, follies. So we should make light of all things and endure them with tolerance: it is more civilized to make fun of life than to bewail it. ~ Seneca, #NFDB
498:(The above Spanish poem, 1975, can be found in the bilingual collection "The Sonnets"
and is presented here for educational, i.e. non commercial, purposes only.
The English translation is by Jackie Joseph 2011
Heraclitus was a philosopher living in the region now known as Turkey, when it was part of the Persian Empire; he believed in Logos (a cosmic formula) and is credited with the phrase (panta rhei) "everything flows") ~ ~ ~
,#NFDB
499:The living and the dead,
The awake and the sleeping,
The young and the old are all one and the same.
When the ones change, they become the others.
When those shift again, they become these again.
God is day and night.
God is winter and summer.
God is war and peace.
God is fertility and famine.
He transforms into many things.
Day and night are one.
Goodness and badness are one.
The beginning and the end of a circle are one. ~ Heraclitus,#NFDB
500:I believe that even a smattering of such findings in modern science and mathematics is far more compelling and exciting than most of the doctrines of pseudoscience, whose practitioners were condemned as early as the fifth century B.C. by the Ionian philosopher Heraclitus as “nigh -walkers, magicians, priests of Bacchus, priestesses of the wine-vat, mystery-mongers.” But science is more intricate and subtle, reveals a much richer imiverse, and powerfully evokes our sense of wonder. ~ Carl Sagan, #NFDB
501:The pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Parmenides taught that the only things that are real are things which never change... and the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Heraclitus taught that everything changes. If you superimpose their two views, you get this result: Nothing is real. ~ Philip K Dick, #NFDB
502:This ‘universal reason’ or ‘universal law’ is something common to us all, and something that everybody is guided by. And yet most people live by their individual reason, thought Heraclitus. In general, he despised his fellow beings. ‘The opinions of most people,’ he said, ‘are like the playthings of infants.’ So in the midst of all nature’s constant flux and opposites, Heraclitus saw an Entity or one-ness, This ‘something,’ which was the source of everything, he called God or logos. ~ Jostein Gaarder, #NFDB
503:The everlasting and exclusive coming-to-be, the impermanence of everything actual, which constantly acts and comes-to-be but never is, as Heraclitus teaches it, is a terrible, paralyzing thought. Its impact on men can most nearly be likened to the sensation during an earthquake when one loses one's familiar confidence in a firmly grounded earth. It takes astonishing strength to transform this reaction into its opposite, into sublimity and the feeling of blessed astonishment.
(p.58) ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,#NFDB
504: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, #NFDB
505:Five hundred years before Christ was born, the Greek philosopher Heraclitus told his students that "everything changes except the law of change". He said: "You cannot step in the same river twice." The river changes every second; and so does the man who stepped in it. Life is a ceaseless change. The only certainty is today. Why mar the beauty of living today by trying to solve the problems of a future that is shrouded in ceaseless change and uncertainty-a future that no one can possibly foretell? ~ Dale Carnegie, #NFDB
506:If some should accuse us as if we held that people born before the time of Christ were not accountable to God for their actions, we shall anticipate and answer such a difficulty. We have been taught that Christ is the first-begotten of God, and we have declared him to be the Logos of which all mankind partakes. Those, therefore, who lived according to reason (logos) were really Christians, even though they were thought to be atheists, such as, among the Greeks, Socrates, Heraclitus and others like them. ~ Justin Martyr, #NFDB
507:Wherefore we ought not childishly to neglect the study even of the most
despised animals, for in all natural objects there lies something marvelous.
And as it is related of Heraclitus that certain strangers who came to visit him,
when, they found him warming himself at the kitchen fire, stopped short he
bade them enter without fear, for there also were the gods: so we ought to
enter without false shame on the examination of all living beings, for in all
of them resides something of nature and beauty. ~ Aristotle,#NFDB
508:Before I can say I am, I was. Heraclitus and I, prophets of flux, know that the flux is composed of parts that imitate and repeat each other. Am or was, I am cumulative, too. I am everything I ever was, whatever you and Leah may think. I am much of what my parents and especially my grandparents were -- inherited stature, coloring, brains, bones (that part unfortunate), plus transmitted prejudices, culture, scruples, likings, moralities, and moral errors that I defend as if they were personal and not familial. ~ Wallace Stegner, #NFDB
509:An aphorism is a link in a chain of thoughts. It demands that the reader reconstitute this chain with his own means. An aphorism is a presumption. — Or it is a precaution, as Heraclitus knew. An aphorism must, if it is to be enjoyed, be put into contact and tempered with other material (examples, explanations, stories). Most do not understand this and for this reason one may express what is risky without risk ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, "Bedenkliches unbedenklich," in Aphorisms, 2, 20(3] (Winter 1876-77). Cited in: Richard Velkley (2007) Freedom and the Human Person, p. 229, #NFDB
510:The common Greek word, logos, was originally understood in several different ways; one of which was as “intention, hypothesis, or thought”. Heraclitus, in the 4th century B.C.E., the first to use the word in a metaphysical sense, intended by it the Divine Intelligence by which all the world is pervaded. Much later, a contemporary of Jesus, Philo Judaeus, an influential Alexandrian Jew with strong ties to the Greek, and specifically the Platonic, philosophical tradition, used the word to denote the Thought in the Mind of God, wherefrom the Idea of the world took form. ~ Swami Abhayananda, #NFDB
511:Cosmogony
Neither darkness nor chaos.
Darkness requires eyes which see,
like sound and silence require the ability to hear
and the mirror needs a form to occupy it.
Neither space nor time.
Not even a divinity to plan
the silence prior to the first night
of all time, which will be infinite.
The grand river of Heraclitus the Obscure
has not begun its irrevocable course,
to flow from the past to the future,
to flow from oblivion to oblivion.
But something endures. Something begs.
And then, a universal history. Now.
~ ~ ~ ~
,#NFDB
512:Always remember what Heraclitus said: 'The death of earth is the birth of water, the death of water is the birth of atmosphere, the death of atmosphere is fire, and conversely.' Remember, too, his image of the man who forgets the way he is going; and: 'They are at variance with that with which they most continuously have converse (Reason which governs the Universe), and the things they meet with every day appear alien to them'; and again: 'We suppose that we act and speak'; and: 'We must not be like children with parents,' that is, accept things simply as we have received them. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
513:This is the message of your life and my life - it’s that nothing lasts. Heraclitus said it: Panta Rhei. All flows, nothing lasts. Not your enemies, not your fortune, not who you sleep with at night, not the books, not the house in Saint-Tropez, not even the children - nothing lasts. To the degree that you avert your gaze from this truth, you build the potential for pain into your life. Everything is this act of embracing the present moment, the felt presence of experience, and then moving on to the next felt moment of experience. It’s literally psychological nomadism is what it is. ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
514: Neither darkness nor chaos. The darkness
requires eyes that see, like sound
and silence requires hearing,
and the mirror, the form that inhabits it.
Neither space nor time. Not even
a divinity that premeditated
the silence before the first
night of time, which will be infinite.
The great river of Dark Heraclitus
its irrevocable course has not undertaken,
that from the past flows into the future,
that from oblivion flows into oblivion.
Something that already suffers. Something that begs.
Then universal history. Now.
~ ~ Jorge Luis Borges, Cosmogonia (& translation)
,#NFDB
515:The digital age is Heraclitus on steroids: change is a daily constant. In almost every professional environment, we are expected to use and master tools that did not exist a decade ago, or even last year. For better or worse (and frankly, it is often for worse), organizations have access, essentially, to infinite amounts of data, and what might as well be an infinite variety of ways to sort through and act on that data. At the same time, ideas can be turned into reality at unprecedented speed. The thing Amazon, Facebook, and no less hot firms, including Zara, have in common is they are agile (the new-economy term for fast). ~ Scott Galloway, #NFDB
516:Remember to act always as if you were at a symposium. When the food or drink comes around, reach out and take some politely; if it passes you by don't try pulling it back. And if it has not reached you yet, don't let your desire run ahead of you, be patient until your turn comes. Adopt a similar attitude with regard to children, wife, wealth and status, and in time, you will be entitled to dine with the gods. Go further and decline these goods even when they are on offer and you will have a share in the gods' power as well as their company. That is how Diogenes, Heraclitus and philosophers like them came to be called, and considered, divine. ~ Epictetus, #NFDB
517:And further, observing that all this indeterminate substance is in motion, and that no true predication can be made of that which changes, they supposed that it is impossible to make any true statement about that which is in all ways and entirely changeable. For it was from this supposition that there blossomed forth the most extreme view of those which we have mentioned, that of the professed followers of Heraclitus, and such as Cratylus held, who ended by thinking that one need not say anything, and only moved his finger; and who criticized Heraclitus for saying that one cannot enter the same river twice, for he himself held that it cannot be done even once. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
518:Remember that you must behave as at a banquet. Is anything brought round to you? Put out your hand, and take a moderate share. Does it pass you? Do not stop it. Is it not come yet? Do not yearn in desire towards it, but wait till it reaches you. So with regard to children , wife, office, riches; and you will some time or other be worthy to feast with the gods. And if you do not so much as take the things which are set before you, but are able even to forego them, then you will not only be worthy to feast with the gods, but to rule with them also. For, by thus doing, Diogenes and Heraclitus, and others like them, deservedly became divine, and were so recognized. ~ Epictetus, #NFDB
519:what is this word “logos”? It’s a term that is always difficult to translate in Greek philosophical texts; in this case, it’s even harder. Basically logos means “word,” but it expands to mean many other things too, like “account” and “reason,” or even “proportion” or “measure.” It’s where we get all those English words that end in “-ology.” For example, “theology” is giving an “account,” a logos, of “god,” theos; “anthropology” is giving an “account,” a logos, of “man,” anthropos; and we just saw that bios means “life,” hence our word “biology.” So, quite an important word, and it’s here in Heraclitus that it first becomes really crucial in philosophical Greek. ~ Peter Adamson, #NFDB
520:What I really fear is time. That's the devil: whipping us on when we'd rather loll, so the present sprints by, impossible to grasp, and all is suddenly past, a past that won't hold still, that slides into these inauthentic tales. My past- it doesn't feel real in the slightest. The person who inhabited it is not me. It's as if the present me is constantly dissolving. There's that line from Heraclitus: 'No man steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.' That's quite right. We enjoy this illusion of continuity, and we call it memory. Which explains, perhaps, why our worst fear isn't the end of life but the end of memories. ~ Tom Rachman, #NFDB
521:Emerson said that a library is a magic chamber in which there are many enchanted spirits. They wake when we call them. When the book lies unopened, it is literally, geometrically, a volume, a thing among things. When we open it, when the book surrenders itself to its reader, the aesthetic event occurs. And even for the same reader the same book changes, for the change; we are the river of Heraclitus, who said that the man of yesterday is not the man of today, who will not be the man of tomorrow. We change incessantly, and each reading of a book, each rereading, each memory of that rereading, reinvents the text. The text too is the changing river of Heraclitus. ~ Jorge Luis Borges, #NFDB
522:All of us are working on the same project. Some consciously, with understanding; some without knowing it. (I think this is what Heraclitus meant when he said that “those who sleep are also hard at work”—that they too collaborate in what happens.) Some of us work in one way, and some in others. And those who complain and try to obstruct and thwart things—they help as much as anyone. The world needs them as well. So make up your mind who you’ll choose to work with. The force that directs all things will make good use of you regardless—will put you on its payroll and set you to work. But make sure it’s not the job Chrysippus speaks of: the bad line in the play, put there for laughs. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
523:We are the time. We are the famous
metaphor from Heraclitus the Obscure.
We are the water, not the hard diamond,
the one that is lost, not the one that stands still.
We are the river and we are that greek
that looks himself into the river. His reflection
changes into the waters of the changing mirror,
into the crystal that changes like the fire.
We are the vain predetermined river,
in his travel to his sea.
The shadows have surrounded him.
Everything said goodbye to us, everything goes away.
Memory does not stamp his own coin.
However, there is something that stays
however, there is something that bemoans.
~ Jorge Luis Borges, We Are The Time. We Are The Famous
,#NFDB
524:For the Greeks, values existed a priori and marked out the exact limits of every action. Modern philosophy places its values at the completion of action. They are not, but they become, and we shall know them completely only at the end of history. When they disappear, limits vanish as well, and since ideas differ as to what these values will be, since there is no struggle which, unhindered by these same values, does not extend indefinitely, we are now witnessing the Messianic forces confronting one another, their clamors merging in the shock of empires. Excess is a fire, according to Heraclitus. The fire is gaining ground; Nietzsche has been overtaken. It is no longer with hammer blows but with cannon shots that Europe philosophizes. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
525:Sometimes you have to realize that the only constant in life is change."
"Wow! Very profound," Willo said with a chuckle. "Did you know Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher, said that a very, very long time ago?"
"No," Gordon said. "You learned a lot in college."
"I guess I did," Willo said. Then she laughed. "But if knowing a dead Greek philosopher is all I know, I'm in for big trouble in the real world."
"My dad says, 'Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.'"
"That's a Chinese proverb," Willo said admiringly.
"Sort of my family's philosophy in life and work," he said. "I tell my dad, 'If we don't catch fish, we're having a Swanson TV dinner.'"
"I don't know if that proverb will catch on," Willo said. ~ Viola Shipman,#NFDB
526:Democritus and Heraclitus were two philosophers, of whom the first, finding the condition of man vain and ridiculous, never went out in public but with a mocking and laughing face; whereas Heraclitus, having pity and compassion on this same condition of ours, wore a face perpetually sad, and eyes filled with tears. I prefer the first humor; not because it is pleasanter to laugh than to weep, but because it is more disdainful, and condemns us more than the other; and it seems to me that we can never be despised as much as we deserve. Pity and commiseration are mingled with some esteem for the thing we pity; the things we laugh at we consider worthless. I do not think there is as much unhappiness in us as vanity, nor as much malice as stupidity. We are not so full of evil as of inanity; we are not as wretched as we are worthless. ~ Michel de Montaigne, #NFDB
527:Nietzsche was a Greek born two thousand years too late. His dreams were thoroughly Hellenic; his whole manner of thinking was Hellenic; his peculiar errors were Hellenic no less. But his Hellenism, I need not add, was anything but the pale neo-Platonism that has run like a thread through the thinking of the Western world since the days of the Christian Fathers. From Plato, to be sure, he got what all of us must get, but his real forefather was Heraclitus. It is in Heraclitus that one finds the germ of his primary view of the universe—a view, to wit, that sees it, not as moral phenomenon, but as mere aesthetic representation. The God that Nietzsche imagined, in the end, was not far from the God that such an artist as Joseph Conrad imagines—a supreme craftsman, ever experimenting, ever coming closer to an ideal balancing of lines and forces, ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
528:if my memory serves me right, here is my genealogical line: Boccaccio, Petronius, Rabelais, Whitman, Emerson, Thoreau, Maeterlinck, Romain Rolland, Plotinus, Heraclitus, Nietzsche, Dostoievsky (and other Russian writers of the Nineteenth Century), the ancient Greek dramatists, theElizabethan dramatists (excluding Shakespeare), Theodore Dreiser, Knut Hamsun, D. H. Lawrence, James Joyce, Thomas Mann, Elie Faure, Oswald Spengler, Marcel Proust, Van Gogh, the Dadaists and Surrealists, Balzac, Lewis Carroll, Nijinsky, Rimbaud, Blaise Cendrars, Jean Giono, Celine, everything I read on Zen Buddhism, everything I read about China, India, Tibet, Arabia, Africa, and of course the Bible, the men who wrote it and especially the men who made the King James version, for it was the language of the Bible rather than its “message” which I got first and which I will never shake off. ~ Henry Miller, #NFDB
529:Keep this constantly in mind: that all sorts of people have died—all professions, all nationalities. Follow the thought all the way down to Philistion, Phoebus, and Origanion. Now extend it to other species. We have to go there too, where all of them have already gone: . . . the eloquent and the wise—Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Socrates . . . . . . the heroes of old, the soldiers and kings who followed them . . . . . . Eudoxus, Hipparchus, Archimedes . . . . . . the smart, the generous, the hardworking, the cunning, the selfish . . . . . . and even Menippus and his cohorts, who laughed at thewhole brief, fragile business. All underground for a long time now. And what harm does it do them? Or the others either—the ones whose names we don’t even know? The only thing that isn’t worthless: to live this life out truthfully and rightly. And be patient with those who don’t. ~ Marcus Aurelius, #NFDB
530:Hippocrates cured many illnesses—and then fell ill and
died. The Chaldaeans predicted the deaths of many others; in
due course their own hour arrived. Alexander, Pompey,
Caesar—who utterly destroyed so many cities, cut down so
many thousand foot and horse in battle—they too departedthis life. Heraclitus often told us the world would end in fire.
But it was moisture that carried him off; he died smeared
with cowshit. Democritus was killed by ordinary vermin,
Socrates by the human kind.
And?
You boarded, you set sail, you’ve made the passage. Time
to disembark. If it’s for another life, well, there’s nowhere
without gods on that side either. If to nothingness, then you no
longer have to put up with pain and pleasure, or go on
dancing attendance on this battered crate, your body—so
much inferior to that which serves it.
One is mind and spirit, the other earth and garbage. ~ Marcus Aurelius,#NFDB
531:Thus, the philosopher dislikes marriage as well as what might persuade him into it??marriage is a barrier and a disaster along his route to the optimal. What great philosopher up to now has been married? Heraclitus, Plato, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibtniz, Kant, Schopenhauer?? None of these got married. What`s more, we cannot even imagine them married. A married philosopher belongs in a comedy, that`s my principle. And Socrates, the exception, the malicious Socrates, it appears, got married ironically to demonstrate this very principle.
Every philosopher would speak as once Buddha spoke when someone told him of the birth his son, "Rahula has been born to me. A shackle has been forged for me." (Rahula here means "a little demon"). To every "free spirit" there must come a reflective hour, provided that previously he has had a one without thought, of the sort that came then to Buddha - "Life in a house," he thought to himself, "is narrow and confined, a polluted place. Freedom consists of abandoning houses;" "because he thought this way, he left the house. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,#NFDB
532:To gaze at a river made of time and water
And remember Time is another river.
To know we stray like a river
and our faces vanish like water.
To feel that waking is another dream
that dreams of not dreaming and that the death
we fear in our bones is the death
that every night we call a dream.
To see in every day and year a symbol
of all the days of man and his years,
and convert the outrage of the years
into a music, a sound, and a symbol.
To see in death a dream, in the sunset
a golden sadnesssuch is poetry,
humble and immortal, poetry,
returning, like dawn and the sunset.
Sometimes at evening there's a face
that sees us from the deeps of a mirror.
Art must be that sort of mirror,
disclosing to each of us his face.
They say Ulysses, wearied of wonders,
wept with love on seeing Ithaca,
humble and green. Art is that Ithaca,
a green eternity, not wonders.
Art is endless like a river flowing,
passing, yet remaining, a mirror to the same
inconstant Heraclitus, who is the same
and yet another, like the river flowing.
~ Jorge Luis Borges, The Art Of Poetry
,#NFDB
533:Looking at the works of art that are considered worthy of preservation in our Museums, and that were once the common objects of the market place, I could not but realise that a society can only be considered truly civilised when it is possible for every man to earn his living by the very work he would rather be doing than anything else in the world, a condition that has only been attained in social orders integrated on the basis of vocation, "svadharma".
At the same time I should like to emphasis that I have never built up a philosophy of my own or wished to establish a new school of thought. Perhaps the greatest thing I have learnt is never to think for myself; I fully agree with Andre Gide that "Toutes choses sont dites deja", and what I have sought is to understand what has been said, while taking no account of the "inferior philosophers". Holding with Heraclitus that the Word is common to all, and that Wisdom is to know the Will whereby all things are steered, I am convinced with Jeremias that the human cultures in all their apparent diversity are but the dialects of one and the same language of the spirit, that there is a "common universe of discourse" transcending the differences of tongues". ~ Ananda K Coomaraswamy,#NFDB
534:Philosophy begins when one learns to doubt—particularly to doubt one’s cherished beliefs, one’s dogmas and one’s axioms. Who knows how these cherished beliefs became certainties with us, and whether some secret wish did not furtively beget them, clothing desire in the dress of thought? There is no real philosophy until the mind turns round and examines itself. Gnothi seauton, said Socrates: Know thyself. There had been philosophers before him, of course: strong men like Thales and Heraclitus, subtle men like Parmenides and Zeno of Elea, seers like Pythagoras and Empedocles; but for the most part they had been physical philosophers; they had sought for the physis or nature of external things, the laws and constituents of the material and measurable world. That is very good, said Socrates; but there is an infinitely worthier subject for philosophers than all these trees and stones, and even all those stars; there is the mind of man. What is man, and what can he become? So he went about prying into the human soul, uncovering assumptions and questioning certainties. If men discoursed too readily of justice, he asked them, quietly, tò tí?—what is it? What do you mean by these abstract words with which you so easily settle the problems of life and death? What do you mean by honor, virtue, morality, patriotism? What do you mean by yourself? It was with such moral and psychological questions that Socrates loved to deal. Some ~ Will Durant, #NFDB
535:In about 1980, he says, at a time when he was still struggling to articulate his own vision of a dynamic, evolving economy, he happened to read a book by the geneticist Richard Lewontin. And he was struck by a passage in which Lewontin said that scientists come in two types. Scientists of the first type see the world as being basically in equilibrium. And if untidy forces sometimes push a system slightly out of equilibrium, then they feel the whole trick is to push it back again. Lewontin called these scientists "Platonists," after the renowned Athenian philosopher who declared that the messy, imperfect objects we see around us are merely the reflections of perfect "archetypes."
Scientists of the second type, however, see the world as a process of flow and change, with the same material constantly going around and around in endless combinations. Lewontin called these scientists "Heraclitans," after the Ionian philosopher who passionately and poetically argued that the world is in a constant state of flux. Heraclitus, who lived nearly a century before Plato, is famous for observing that "Upon those who step into the same rivers flow other and yet other waters," a statement that Plato himself paraphrased as "You can never step into the same river twice."
"When I read what Lewontin said," says Arthur, "it was a moment of revelation. That's when it finally became clear to me what was going on. I thought to myself, "Yes! We're finally beginning to recover from Newton. ~ M Mitchell Waldrop,#NFDB
536:Democritus and Heraclitus were two philosophers, of whom the first, finding the condition of man vain and ridiculous, never went out in public but with a mocking and laughing face; whereas Heraclitus, having pity and compassion on this same condition of ours, wore a face perpetually sad, and eyes filled with tears.
I prefer the first humor; not because it is pleasanter to laugh than to weep, but because it is more disdainful, and condemns us more than the other; and it seems to me that we can never be despised as much as we deserve. Pity and commiseration are mingled with some esteem for the thing we pity; the things we laugh at we consider worthless. I do not think there is as much unhappiness in us as vanity, nor as much malice as stupidity. We are not so full of evil as of inanity; we are not as wretched as we are worthless.
Thus Diogenes, who pottered about by himself, rolling his tub and turning up his nose at the great Alexander, considering us as flies or bags of wind, was really a sharper and more stinging judge, to my taste, than Timon, who was surnamed the hater of men. For what we hate we take seriously. Timon wished us ill, passionately desired our ruin, shunned association with us as dangerous, as with wicked men depraved by nature. Diogenes esteemed us so little that contact with us could neither disturb him nor affect him, and avoided our company, not through fear of association with us, but through disdain of it; he considered us incapable of doing either good or evil....
Our own peculiar condition is that we are as fit to be laughed at as able to laugh. ~ Michel de Montaigne,#NFDB
537:reading :::
50 Philosophy Classics: List of Books Covered:
1. Hannah Arendt - The Human Condition (1958)
2. Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics (4th century BC)
3. AJ Ayer - Language, Truth and Logic (1936)
4. Julian Baggini - The Ego Trick (2011)
5. Jean Baudrillard - Simulacra and Simulation (1981)
6. Simone de Beauvoir - The Second Sex (1952)
7. Jeremy Bentham - Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789)
8. Henri Bergson - Creative Evolution (1911)
9. David Bohm - Wholeness and the Implicate Order (1980)
10. Noam Chomsky - Understanding Power (2002)
11. Cicero - On Duties (44 BC)
12. Confucius - Analects (5th century BC)
13. Rene Descartes - Meditations (1641)
14. Ralph Waldo Emerson - Fate (1860)
15. Epicurus - Letters (3rd century BC)
16. Michel Foucault - The Order of Things (1966)
17. Harry Frankfurt - On Bullshit (2005)
18. Sam Harris - Free Will (2012)
19. GWF Hegel - Phenomenology of Spirit (1803)
20. Martin Heidegger - Being and Time (1927)
21. Heraclitus - Fragments (6th century)
22. David Hume - An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)
23. William James - Pragmatism (1904)
24. Daniel Kahneman - Thinking: Fast and Slow (2011)
25. Immanuel Kant - Critique of Pure Reason (1781)
26. Soren Kierkegaard - Fear and Trembling (1843)
27. Saul Kripke - Naming and Necessity (1972)
28. Thomas Kuhn - The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962)
29. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz - Theodicy (1710)
30. John Locke - An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)
31. Marshall McLuhan - The Medium is the Massage (1967)
32. Niccolo Machiavelli - The Prince (1532)
33. John Stuart Mill - On Liberty (1859)
34. Michel de Montaigne - Essays (1580)
35. Iris Murdoch - The Sovereignty of Good (1970)
36. Friedrich Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil (1886)
37. Blaise Pascal - Pensees (1670)
38. Plato - The Republic (4th century BC)
39. Karl Popper - The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934)
40. John Rawls - A Theory of Justice (1971)
41. Jean-Jacques Rousseau - The Social Contract (1762)
42. Bertrand Russell - The Conquest of Happiness (1920)
43. Michael Sandel - Justice (2009)
44. Jean Paul Sartre - Being and Nothingness (1943)
45. Arthur Schopenhauer - The World as Will and Representation (1818)
46. Peter Singer - The Life You Can Save (2009)
47. Baruch Spinoza - Ethics (1677)
48. Nassim Nicholas - Taleb The Black Swan (2007)
49. Ludwig Wittgenstein - Philosophical Investigations (1953)
50. Slavoj Zizek - Living In The End Times (2010)
~ Tom Butler-Bowdon, 50 Philosophy Classics,#NFDB
538:The thought turned him topsy-turvy. It seemed to summarize the whole worthless way of the world--if there was one. And versions of it began to flutter wildly through his head. You have to look round to see straight. Good enough. Useful. And the rough places plain. But all that's geometry. But it measures the earth. You have to go slow to catch up. Eat to get thin? no, but fast to grow fat, that was a fine one. Then lose to win? fail to succeed? Risky. Stop to begin. The form made noiseless music--lumly lum lum or lum-lee-lee lum--like fill to empty, every physical extreme. Die to live was a bit old hat. But default to repay. And lie to be honest. He liked the ring of that. Flack! I'm white in order to be black. Sin first and saint later. Cruel to be kind, of course, and the hurts in the hurter--that's what they say--a lot of blap. That's my name, my nomination: Saint Later. Now then: humble to be proud; poor to be rich. Enslave to make free? That moved naturally. Also multiply to subtract. Dee dee dee. Young Saint Later. A list of them, as old as Pythagoras had. Even engenders odd. How would that be? Eight is five and three. There were no middle-aged saints--they were all old men or babies. Ah, god--the wise fool. The simpleton sublime. Babe in the woods, roach in the pudding, prince in the pauper, enchanted beauty in the toad. This was the wisdom of the folk and the philosopher alike--the disorder of the lyre, or the drawn-out bow of that sane madman, the holy Heraclitus. The poet Zeno. The logician Keats. Discovery after discovery: the more the mice eat, the fatter the cats. There were tears and laughter, for instance--how they shook and ran together into one gay grief. Dumb eloquence, swift still waters, shallow deeps. Let's see: impenitent remorse, careless anxiety, heedless worry, tense repose. So true of tigers. Then there was the friendly enmity of sun and snow, and the sweet disharmony of every union, the greasy mate of cock and cunt, the cosmic poles, war that's peace, the stumble that's an everlasting poise and balance, spring and fall, love, strife, health, disease, and the cold duplicity of Number One and all its warm divisions. The sameness that's in difference. The limit that's limitless. The permanence that's change. The distance of the near at home. So--to roam, stay home. Then pursue to be caught, submit to conquer. Method--ancient--of Chinese. To pacify, inflame. Love, hate. Kiss, kill. In, out, up, down, start, stop. Ah . . . from pleasure, pain. Like circumcision of the heart. Judgement and mercy. Sin and grace. It little mattered; everything seemed to Furber to be magically right, and his heart grew fat with satisfaction. Therefore there is good in every evil; one must lower away to raise; seek what's found to mourn its loss; conceive in stone and execute in water; turn profound and obvious, miraculous and commonplace, around; sin to save; destroy in order to create; live in the sun, though underground. Yes. Doubt in order to believe--that was an old one--for this the square IS in the circle. O Phaedo, Phaedo. O endless ending. Soul is immortal after all--at last it's proved. Between dead and living there's no difference but the one has whiter bones. Furber rose, the mosquitoes swarming around him, and ran inside. ~ William H Gass, #NFDB
539:(Novum Organum by Francis Bacon.)
34. "Four species of idols beset the human mind, to which (for distinction's sake) we have assigned names, calling the first Idols of the Tribe, the second Idols of the Den, the third Idols of the Market, the fourth Idols of the Theatre.
40. "The information of notions and axioms on the foundation of true induction is the only fitting remedy by which we can ward off and expel these idols. It is, however, of great service to point them out; for the doctrine of idols bears the same relation to the interpretation of nature as that of the confutation of sophisms does to common logic.
41. "The idols of the tribe are inherent in human nature and the very tribe or race of man; for man's sense is falsely asserted to be the standard of things; on the contrary, all the perceptions both of the senses and the mind bear reference to man and not to the Universe, and the human mind resembles these uneven mirrors which impart their own properties to different objects, from which rays are emitted and distort and disfigure them.
42. "The idols of the den are those of each individual; for everybody (in addition to the errors common to the race of man) has his own individual den or cavern, which intercepts and corrupts the light of nature, either from his own peculiar and singular disposition, or from his education and intercourse with others, or from his reading, and the authority acquired by those whom he reverences and admires, or from the different impressions produced on the mind, as it happens to be preoccupied and predisposed, or equable and tranquil, and the like; so that the spirit of man (according to its several dispositions), is variable, confused, and, as it were, actuated by chance; and Heraclitus said well that men search for knowledge in lesser worlds, and not in the greater or common world.
43. "There are also idols formed by the reciprocal intercourse and society of man with man, which we call idols of the market, from the commerce and association of men with each other; for men converse by means of language, but words are formed at the will of the generality, and there arises from a bad and unapt formation of words a wonderful obstruction to the mind. Nor can the definitions and explanations with which learned men are wont to guard and protect themselves in some instances afford a complete remedy-words still manifestly force the understanding, throw everything into confusion, and lead mankind into vain and innumerable controversies and fallacies.
44. "Lastly, there are idols which have crept into men's minds from the various dogmas of peculiar systems of philosophy, and also from the perverted rules of demonstration, and these we denominate idols of the theatre: for we regard all the systems of philosophy hitherto received or imagined, as so many plays brought out and performed, creating fictitious and theatrical worlds. Nor do we speak only of the present systems, or of the philosophy and sects of the ancients, since numerous other plays of a similar nature can be still composed and made to agree with each other, the causes of the most opposite errors being generally the same. Nor, again, do we allude merely to general systems, but also to many elements and axioms of sciences which have become inveterate by tradition, implicit credence, and neglect. ~ Alfred Korzybski, Manhood of Humanity,#NFDB
18 Philosophy
14 Christianity
8 Integral Yoga
4 Psychology
4 Poetry
4 Occultism
1 Alchemy
12 Plotinus
6 Nolini Kanta Gupta
6 Carl Jung
4 Jorge Luis Borges
3 George Van Vrekhem
2 Sri Aurobindo
2 Saint Augustine of Hippo
2 Friedrich Nietzsche
6 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01
3 Preparing for the Miraculous
3 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03
3 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
3 Borges - Poems
2 Twilight of the Idols
2 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04
2 Mysterium Coniunctionis
2 City of God
2 Aion
03.04 - The Other Aspect of European Culture, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
And the secret soul of this Classical culture was not inherited by those who professed to be its champions and adorers the torch-bearers of the New Enlightenment; no, its direct descendants were to be found among the builders of the Christian civilization. Plato and Pythagoras and Heraclitus and the initiates to the Orphic and the Eleusinian mysteries continued to live in and through Plotinus and Anselm and Paracelsus and the long line of Christian savants and sages. The Middle Age had its own spiritual discoveries and achievements founded on the Cult of the Christ; to these it added what it could draw and assimilate from the mystic and spiritual traditions of the Grco-Latin world. The esoteric discipline of the Jewish Kabala also was not without influence in shaping the more secret undercurrents of Europe's creative and formative genius. The composite culture which they grew and developed had undisputed empire over Europe for some ten or twelve centuries; and it was nothing, if not at heart a spiritual and religious and other-worldly culture.
Herein lay Europe's soul; and to it turned often and anon the gaze of those who, among a profane humanity, are still the guardians of the Spiritpoets and artistswho, even in the very midst of the maelstrom of Modernism, sought to hark back, back to the rock of the ages. The mediaevalism and archaicism of which a Rossetti or a Morris, for example, is often accused embodies only a defensive reaction on the part of Europe's soul; it is an attempt to return to her more fundamental life-intuition.
04.01 - The March of Civilisation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
If we look at Europe once again and cast a glance at its origins, we find at the source the Grco-Roman culture. It was pre-eminently a culture based upon the powers of mind and reason: it included a strong and balanced body (both body natural and body politic) under the aegis of mens sana (a sound mind). The light that was Greece was at its zenith a power of the higher mind and intelligence, intuitively dynamic in one the earlierphase through Plato, Pythagoras, Heraclitus and the mystic philosophers, and discursively and scientifically rational through the Aristotelian tradition. The practical and robust Roman did not indulge in the loftier and subtler activities of the higher or intuitive mind; his was applied intelligence and its characteristic turn found expression in law and order and governance. Virgil was a representative poet of the race; finely sensitive and yet very self-consciousearth-bound and mind-boundas a creative artist: a clear and careful intelligence with an idealistic imagination that is yet sober and fancy-free is the very hall mark of his poetic genius. In the post-Roman age this bias for mental consciousness or the play of reason and intellectual understanding moved towards the superficial and more formal faculties of the brain ending in what is called scholasticism: it meant stagnation and decadence. It is out of this slough that the Renaissance raised the mind of Europe and bathed it with a new light. That movement gave to the mind a wider scope, an alert curiosity, a keener understanding; it is, as I have said, the beginning of that modern mentality which is known as the scientific outlook, that is to say, study of facts and induction from given data, observation and experience and experiment instead of the other scholastic standpoint which goes by a priori theorising and abstraction and deduction and dogmatism.
We may follow a little more closely the march of the centuries in their undulating movement. The creative intelligence of the Renaissance too belonged to a region of the higher mind, a kind of inspirational mind. It had not the altitude or even the depth of the Greek mind nor its subtler resonances: but it regained and re-established and carried to a new degree the spirit of inquiry and curiosity, an appreciation of human motives and preoccupations, a rational understanding of man and the mechanism of the world. The original intuitive fiat, the imaginative brilliance, the spirit of adventure (in the mental as well as the physical world) that inspired the epoch gradually dwindled: it gave place to an age of consolidation, organisation, stabilisation the classical age. The seventeenth century Europe marked another peak of Europe's civilisation. That is the Augustan Age to which we have referred. The following century marked a further decline of the Intuition and higher imagination and we come to the eighteenth century terre terre rationalism. Great figures still adorned that agestalwarts that either stuck to the prevailing norm and gave it a kind of stagnant nobility or already leaned towards the new light that was dawning once more. Pope and Johnson, Montesquieu and Voltaire are its high-lights. The nineteenth century brought in another crest wave with a special gift to mankind; apparently it was a reaction to the rigid classicism and dry rationalism of the preceding age, but it came burdened with a more positive mission. Its magic name was Romanticism. Man opened his heart, his higher feeling and nobler emotional surge, his subtler sensibility and a general sweep of his vital being to the truths and realities of his own nature and of the cosmic nature. Not the clear white and transparent almost glaring light of reason and logic, of the brain mind, but the rosy or rainbow tint of the emotive and aspiring personality that seeks in and through the cosmic panorama and dreams of
05.08 - An Age of Revolution, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The search for a universal principle of Nature is a meta-physical as well as a scientific preoccupation. In ancient days, fo example, we had the Water of Thales or the Fire of Heraclitus as the one original unifying principle of this kind. With the coming of the Renascence and the New Illumination we laughed them out and installed instead the mysterious Ether. For a long time this universalreigned supreme and now that too has gone the way of its predecessors. We thought for a time that we had found in Electric Energy the one sovereign principle in Nature. At a time when we had a few elementsdiscrete, different, fundamental units that in their varying combinations built up the composite structure of Nature, apart from the fact that they reposed finally on the ultimate unifying principle of Ether, it was found also that they all behaved in a uniform and identical and therefore predictable manner. The time and the place (and the mass) being given, everything went according to a pattern and a formula, definite, fixed, mathematically rigid. Even the discovery of one element after another till the number reached the famous figure 92 (itself following a line of mathematically precise and inevitable development) did not materially alter the situation and caused no tribulation. For on further scrutiny a closer unity revealed itself: the supposed disparity in the substance of the various elements was found to be an illusion, for they all appeared now as different organisations or dispositions of the same electric energy (although the identity of electric energy with radiant energy was not always very clear). Thus we could conclude that as the substance was the same, its mode of working also would be' uniform and patterned. In other words, the mechanistic conception still ruled our view' of Nature. That means, the ultimate units, the particles (of energy) that compose Nature are like sea-sands or water-drops, each one is fundamentally similar to any other and all behave similarly, reacting uniformly to the same forces that act upon them.
Well, it is now found that they do not do so. However same or similar constitutionally, each unit is sui generisand its movement cannot be predicted. That movement does not depend upon its mass or store of energy or its position in a pattern, as a wholly mechanistic conception would demand: it is something incalculable, one should say even, erratic. In a radioactive substance, the particle that is shot out, becomes active, cannot be predetermined by any calculation, even if that is due to a definitely and precisely arranged bombardment. So we have come to posit a principle of uncertainty, as a very fundamental law of Nature. It practically declares that the ultimate particle is an autonomou unit, it is an' individual, almost a personality, and seems to have a will of its own. A material unit acts very much like a biological unit: it does not obey mechanically, answer mechanically as an automaton, but seems to possess a capacity for choice, for assent or refusal, for a free determination. The mechanistic view presented is due to an average functioning. The phenomenon has been explained by a very apt image. It is like an army. A group of soldiers, when they are on parade, look all similar and geometrically patterned: each is just like another and all move and march in the same identical manner. But that' is when you look at the whole, the collectivity, but looked individually, each one regains his separate distinct personality, each having his own nature and character, his own unique history: there no two are alike, each is non pareil and behaves differently, incalculably.
07.03 - This Expanding Universe, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
On the contrary, the sphere of manifestation is precisely the field of the sudden and the incalculable, that is to say, of free will. Things appear here that were not before, forces come into play that were not expected or even imagined. They all move along lines that shift and change continually. This is the status of becomingsambhuti, as designated by the Upanishad and described by the Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, in the words, panta reei, everything flows on. Here, often a certain disposition that seems quite stable or predictable is upset all of a sudden by the irruption of a new and novel factor from somewhere else.
But in between the two, on the borderland, as it were, there is a poise of consciousness which combines both in an integral perception, it is a single movement of both being and becoming. It is the Supermind. It is the point where what is or exists in the unmanifest just becomes in the manifest, the pure truth or reality above at standstill stirs and begins to come out or disengage itself through a play of possibles. It is like a cinema film that is rolled up and kept in a spool till it is put on the projector and rolled out gradually upon the screen of life and in life-size' presentation.
1.01 - Adam Kadmon and the Evolution, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
able series of articles on the pre-Socratic sage Heraclitus,
he writes for instance that in one of Heraclitus sayings
we are reminded of the Vedic Fire which is hymned as the
1.01 - Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
spirit too, as Heraclitus says, has descended from its fiery heights.
But when spirit becomes heavy it turns to water, and with
--
fire." For Heraclitus the soul at the highest level is fiery and dry,
because if^xn as such is closely akin to "cool breath" i/nj'xv means
1.03 - .REASON. IN PHILOSOPHY, #Twilight of the Idols, #Friedrich Nietzsche, #Philosophy
they possessed permanence and unity. Even Heraclitus did an injustice
to the senses. The latter lie neither as the Eleatics believed them
--
declaring that Being was an empty illusion, Heraclitus will remain
eternally right The "apparent" world is the only world: the "true
1.04 - The First Circle, Limbo Virtuous Pagans and the Unbaptized. The Four Poets, Homer, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan. The Noble Castle of Philosophy., #The Divine Comedy, #Dante Alighieri, #Christianity
Zeno, Empedocles, and Heraclitus;
Of qualities I saw the good collector,
1.04 - What Arjuna Saw - the Dark Side of the Force, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
War, said Heraclitus, is the father of all things, war is
the king of all; and the saying, like most of the apophthegms
1.05 - 2010 and 1956 - Doomsday?, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
of all things according to Heraclitus the great War of the
Twentieth Century, in its three parts of World War One and
1.06 - Confutation Of Other Philosophers, #Of The Nature Of Things, #Lucretius, #Poetry
That Heraclitus, famous for dark speech
Among the silly, not the serious Greeks
1.13 - Gnostic Symbols of the Self, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
Similarly Heraclitus, "the physicist," is said to have conceived
the soul as a "spark of stellar essence." 142 Hippolytus says that
1.14 - The Structure and Dynamics of the Self, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
84 "Tortures bodies, is the dragon." 85 The oldest source is Heraclitus.
86 Turba, ed. by Ruska, Sermo XLIII, p. 149.
1.28 - Supermind, Mind and the Overmind Maya, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
13:And still we can recognise at once in the Overmind the original cosmic Maya, not a Maya of Ignorance but a Maya of Knowledge, yet a Power which has made the Ignorance possible, even inevitable. For if each principle loosed into action must follow its independent line and carry out its complete consequences, the principle of separation must also be allowed its complete course and arrive at its absolute consequence; this is the inevitable descent, facilis descensus, which Consciousness, once it admits the separative principle, follows till it enters by obscuring infinitesimal fragmentation, tucchyena,5 into the material Inconscience, - the Inconscient Ocean of the Rig Veda, - and if the One is born from that by its own greatness, it is still at first concealed by a fragmentary separative existence and consciousness which is ours and in which we have to piece things together to arrive at a whole. In that slow and difficult emergence a certain semblance of truth is given to the dictum of Heraclitus that War is the father of all things; for each idea, force, separate consciousness, living being by the very necessity of its ignorance enters into collision with others and tries to live and grow and fulfil itself by independent self-assertion, not by harmony with the rest of existence. Yet there is still the unknown underlying Oneness which compels us to strive slowly towards some form of harmony, of interdependence, of concording of discords, of a difficult unity. But it is only by the evolution in us of the concealed superconscient powers of cosmic Truth and of the Reality in which they are one that the harmony and unity we strive for can be dynamically realised in the very fibre of our being and all its self-expression and not merely in imperfect attempts, incomplete constructions, ever-changing approximations. The higher ranges of spiritual Mind have to open upon our being and consciousness and also that which is beyond even spiritual Mind must appear in us if we are to fulfil the divine possibility of our birth into cosmic existence.
14:Overmind in its descent reaches a line which divides the cosmic Truth from the cosmic Ignorance; it is the line at which it becomes possible for Consciousness-Force, emphasising the separateness of each independent movement created by Overmind and hiding or darkening their unity, to divide Mind by an exclusive concentration from the overmental source. There has already been a similar separation of Overmind from its supramental source, but with a transparency in the veil which allows a conscious transmission and maintains a certain luminous kinship; but here the veil is opaque and the transmission of the Overmind motives to the Mind is occult and obscure. Mind separated acts as if it were an independent principle, and each mental being, each basic mental idea, power, force stands similarly on its separate self; if it communicates or combines with or contacts others, it is not with the catholic universality of the Overmind movement, on a basis of underlying oneness, but as independent units joining to form a separate constructed whole. It is by this movement that we pass from the cosmic Truth into the cosmic Ignorance. The cosmic Mind on this level, no doubt, comprehends its own unity, but it is not aware of its own source and foundation in the Spirit or can only comprehend it by the intelligence, not in any enduring experience; it acts in itself as if by its own right and works out what it receives as material without direct communication with the source from which it receives it. Its units also act in ignorance of each other and of the cosmic whole except for the knowledge that they can get by contact and communication, - the basic sense of identity and the mutual penetration and understanding that comes from it are no longer there. All the actions of this Mind Energy proceed on the opposite basis of the Ignorance and its divisions and, although they are the results of a certain conscious knowledge, it is a partial knowledge, not a true and integral self-knowledge, nor a true and integral world-knowledge. This character persists in Life and in subtle Matter and reappears in the gross material universe which arises from the final lapse into the Inconscience.
1.35 - The Tao 2, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Occultism
As for ,[64] which superficially might seem the best translation of Tao as described in the text, it is the most misleading of the three. For To On possesses an extensive connotation implying a whole system of Platonic concepts, than which nothing can be more alien to the essential quality of the Tao. Tao is neither "being" nor "not being" in any sense which Europe could understand. It is neither existence, nor a condition or form of existence. Equally, TO MH ON gives no idea of Tao. Tao is altogether alien to all that class of thought. From its connection with "that principle which necessarily underlies the fact that events occur" one might suppose that the "Becoming" of Heraclitus might assist us to describe the Tao. But the Tao is not a principle at all of that kind. To understand it requires an altogether different state of mind to any with which European thinkers in general are familiar. It is necessary to pursue unflinchingly the path of spiritual development on the lines indicated by the Sufis, the Hindus and the Buddhists; and, having reached the trance called Nerodha-Sammapati, in which are destroyed all forms soever of consciousness, there appears in that abyss of annihilation the germ of an entirely new type of idea, whose principal characteristic is this: that the entire concatenation of One's previous experiences and conceptions could not have happened at all, save by virtue of this indescribable necessity.
I am only too painfully aware that the above exposition is faulty in every respect. In particular, it presupposes in the reader considerable familiarity with the subject, thus practically begging the question. It must also prove almost wholly unintelligible to the average reader, him in fact whom I especially aim to interest.
1.jlb - Cosmogonia (& translation), #Borges - Poems, #Jorge Luis Borges, #Poetry
The great river of Dark Heraclitus
its irrevocable course has not undertaken,
--
The grand river of Heraclitus the Obscure
has not begun its irrevocable course,
1.jlb - The Art Of Poetry, #Borges - Poems, #Jorge Luis Borges, #Poetry
inconstant Heraclitus, who is the same
and yet another, like the river flowing.
1.jlb - We Are The Time. We Are The Famous, #Borges - Poems, #Jorge Luis Borges, #Poetry
metaphor from Heraclitus the Obscure.
We are the water, not the hard diamond,
2.02 - THE SCINTILLA, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
,55 scintilla, the little soul-spark of Meister Eckhart.56 We find it already in the teachings of Saturninus.57 Similarly Heraclitus, the physicist, is said to have conceived the soul as a spark of stellar essence.58 Hippolytus says that in the doctrine of the Sethians the darkness held the brightness and the spark of light in thrall,59 and that this smallest of sparks was finely mingled in the dark waters60 below.61 Simon Magus62 likewise teaches that in semen and milk there is a very small spark which increases and becomes a power63 boundless and immutable.64
[43] Alchemy, too, has its doctrine of the scintilla. In the first place it is the fiery centre of the earth, where the four elements project their seed in ceaseless movement. For all things have their origin in this source, and nothing in the whole world is born save from this source. In the centre dwells the Archaeus, the servant of nature, whom Paracelsus also calls Vulcan, identifying him with the Adech, the great man.65 The Archaeus, the creative centre of the earth, is hermaphroditic like the Protanthropos, as is clear from the epilogue to the Novum lumen of Sendivogius: When a man is illuminated by the light of nature, the mist vanishes from his eyes, and without difficulty he may behold the point of our magnet, which corresponds to both centres of the rays, that is, those of the sun and the earth. This cryptic sentence is elucidated by the following example: When you place a twelve-year-old boy side by side with a girl of the same age, and dressed the same, you cannot distinguish between them. But take their clothes off66 and the difference will become apparent.67 According to this, the centre consists in a conjunction of male and female. This is confirmed in a text by Abraham Eleazar,68 where the arcane substance laments being in the state of nigredo:
3.04 - Immersion in the Bath, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
souls to become water, says Heraclitus). Opposition and identity at once
a philosophical problem only when taken as a psychological one!
3.05 - SAL, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[251] It is not easy for a modern mind to conceive salt, a cold-damp, lunar-terrestrial substance, as a bird and a spirit. Spirit, as the Chinese conceive it, is yang, the fiery and dry element, and this accords with the views of Heraclitus as well as with the Christian concept of the Holy Ghost as tongues of fire. Luna, we have seen, is unquestionably connected with mens, manas, mind, etc. But these connections are of a somewhat ambiguous nature. Although the earth can boast of an earth-spirit and other daemons, they are after all spirits and not spirit. The cold side of nature is not lacking in spirit, but it is a spirit of a special kind, which Christianity regarded as demonic and which therefore found no acclaim except in the realm of the magical arts and sciences. This spirit is the snake-like Nous or Agathodaimon, which in Hellenistic syncretism merges together with Hermes. Christian allegory and iconography also took possession of it on the basis of John 3 : 14: And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up. The mercurial serpent or spirit Mercurius is the personification and living continuation of the spirit who, in the prayer entitled the Secret Inscription in the Great Magic Papyrus of Paris, is invoked as follows:
Greetings, entire edifice of the Spirit of the air, greetings, Spirit that penetratest from heaven to earth, and from earth, which abideth in the midst of the universe, to the uttermost bounds of the abyss, greetings, Spirit that penetratest into me, and shakest me. . . . Greetings, beginning and end of irremovable Nature, greetings, thou who revolvest the elements that untiringly render service, greetings, brightly shining sun, whose radiance ministereth to the world, greetings, moon shining by night with disc of fickle brilliance, greetings, all ye spirits of the demons of the air. . . . O great, greatest, incomprehensible fabric of the world, formed in a circle! . . . dwelling in the aether, having the form of water, of earth, of fire, of wind, of light, of darkness, star-glittering, damp-fiery-cold Spirit! [
3.6.01 - Heraclitus, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
object:3.6.01 - Heraclitus
author class:Sri Aurobindo
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The philosophy and thought of the Greeks is perhaps the most intellectually stimulating, the most fruitful of clarities the world has yet had. Indian philosophy was intuitive in its beginnings, stimulative rather to the deeper vision of things,-nothing more exalted and profound, more revelatory of the depths and the heights, more powerful to open unending vistas has ever been conceived than the divine and inspired Word, the mantra of Veda and Vedanta. When that philosophy became intellectual, precise, founded on the human reason, it became also rigidly logical, enamoured of fixity and system, desirous of a sort of geometry of thought. The ancient Greek mind had instead a kind of fluid precision, a flexibly inquiring logic; acuteness and the wide-open eye of the intellect were its leading characteristics and by this power in it it determined the whole character and field of subsequent European thinking. Nor is any Greek thinker more directly stimulating than the aphoristic philosopher Heraclitus; and yet he keeps and adds to this more modern intellectual stimulativeness something of the antique psychic and intuitive vision and word of the older Mystics. The trend to rationalism is there, but not yet that fluid clarity of the reasoning mind which was the creation of the Sophists.
Professor R. D. Ranade has recently published a small treatise on the philosophy of Heraclitus. From the paging of the treatise it seems to be an excerpt, but from what there is nothing to tell. It is perhaps too much to hope that it is from a series of essays on philosophers or a history of philosophy by this perfect writer and scholar. At any rate such a work from such a hand would be a priceless gain. For Professor Ranade possesses in a superlative degree the rare gift of easy and yet adequate exposition; but he has more than this, for he can give a fascinating interest to subjects like philology and philosophy which to the ordinary reader seem harsh, dry, difficult and repellent. He joins to a luminous clarity, lucidity and charm of expression an equal luminousness and just clarity of presentation and that perfect manner in both native to the Greek and French language and mind, but rare in the English tongue. In these seventeen pages he has presented the thought of the old enigmatic Ephesian with a clearness and sufficiency which leaves us charmed, enlightened and satisfied.
On one or two difficult points I am inclined to differ with the conclusions he adopts. He rejects positively Pfleiderer's view of Heraclitus as a mystic, which is certainly exaggerated and, as stated, a misconception; but it seems to me that there is behind that misconception a certain truth. Heraclitus' abuse of the mysteries of his time is not very conclusive in this respect; for what he reviles is those aspects of obscure magic, physical ecstasy, sensual excitement which the Mysteries had put on in some at least of their final developments as the process of degeneration increased which made a century later even the Eleusinian a butt for the dangerous mockeries of Alcibiades and his companions. His complaint is that the secret rites which the populace held in ignorant and superstitious reverence "unholily mysticise what are held among men as mysteries." He rebels against the darkness of the Dionysian ecstasy in the approach to the secrets of Nature; but there is a luminous Apollonian as well as an obscure and sometimes dangerous Dionysian mysticism, a Dakshina as well as a Vama Marga of the mystic Tantra. And though no partaker in or supporter of any kind of rites or mummery, Heraclitus still strikes one as at least an intellectual child of the Mystics and of mysticism, although perhaps a rebel son in the house of his mother. He has something of the mystic style, something of the intuitive Apollonian inlook into the secrets of existence.
Certainly, as Mr. Ranade says, mere aphorism is not mysticism; aphorism and epigram are often enough, perhaps usually a condensed or a pregnant effort of the intellect. But Heraclitus' style, as Mr. Ranade himself describes it, is not only aphoristic and epigrammatic but cryptic, and this cryptic character is not merely the self-willed obscurity of an intellectual thinker affecting an excessive condensation of his thought or a too closely-packed burden of suggestiveness. It is enigmatic in the style of the mystics, enigmatic in the manner of their thought which sought to express the riddle of existence in the very language of the riddle. What for instance is the "ever-living Fire" in which he finds the primary and imperishable substance of the universe and identifies it in succession with Zeus and with eternity? or what should we understand by "the thunderbolt which steers all things"? To interpret this fire as merely a material force of heat and flame or simply a metaphor for being which is eternal becoming is, it seems to me, to miss the character of Heraclitus' utterances. It includes both these ideas and everything that connects them. But then we get back at once to the Vedic language and turn of thought; we are reminded of the Vedic Fire which is hymned as the upbuilder of the worlds, the secret Immortal in men and things, the periphery of the gods, Agni who "becomes" all around the other immortals, himself becomes and contains all the gods; we are reminded of the Vedic thunderbolt, that electric Fire, of the Sun who is the true Light, the Eye, the wonderful weapon of the divine pathfinders Mitra and Varuna. It is the same cryptic form of language, the same brief and abundant method of thought even; though the conceptions are not identical, there is a clear kinship.
The mystical language has always this disadvantage that it readily becomes obscure, meaningless or even misleading to those who have not the secret and to posterity a riddle. Mr. Ranade tells us that it is impossible to make out what Heraclitus meant when he said, "The gods are mortals, men immortals." But is it quite impossible if we do not cut off this thinker from the earlier thought of the mystics? The Vedic Rishi also invokes the Dawn, "O goddess and human"; the gods in the Veda are constantly addressed as "men", the same words are traditionally applied to indicate men and immortals. The immanence of the immortal principle in man, the descent of the gods into the workings of mortality was almost the fundamental idea of the mystics. Heraclitus, likewise, seems to recognise the inextricable unity of the eternal and the transitory, that which is for ever and yet seems to exist only in this strife and change which is a continual dying. The gods manifest themselves as things that continually change and perish; man is in principle an eternal being. Heraclitus does not really deal in barren antitheses; his method is a statement of antinomies and an adumbrating of their reconciliation in the very terms of opposition. Thus when he says that the name of the bow (biós) is life (bíos), but its work is death, obviously he intends no mere barren play upon words; he speaks of that principle of war, father of all and king of all, which makes cosmic existence an apparent process of life, but an actual process of death. The Upanishads seized hold of the same truth when they declared life to be the dominion of King Death, described it as the opposite of immortality and even related that all life and existence here were first created by Death for his food.
Unless we bear in mind this pregnant and symbolic character of Heraclitus' language we are likely to sterilise his thought by giving it a too literal sense. Heraclitus praises the "dry soul" as the wisest and best, but, he says, it is a pleasure and satisfaction to souls to become moist. This inclination of the soul to its natural delight in a sort of wine-drenched laxity must be discouraged; for Dionysus the wine-god and Hades, the Lord of Death, the Lord of the dark underworld, are one and the same deity. Professor Ranade takes this eulogy of the dry soul as praise of the dry light of reason; he finds in it a proof that Heraclitus was a rationalist and not a mystic: yet strangely enough he takes the parallel and opposite expressions about the moist soul and Dionysus in a quite different and material sense, as an ethical disapprobation of wine-drinking. Surely, it cannot be so; Heraclitus cannot mean by the dry soul the reason of a sober man and by a moist soul the non-reason or bewildered reason of the drunkard; nor when he says that Hades and Dionysus are the same, is he simply discouraging the drinking of wine as fatal to the health! Evidently he employs here, as always, a figurative and symbolic language because he has to convey a deeper thought for which he finds ordinary language too poor and superficial.
Heraclitus is using the old language of the Mysteries, though in his own new way and for his own individual purpose, when he speaks of Hades and Dionysus and the ever-living Fire or of the Furies, the succourers of Justice who will find out the Sun if he oversteps his measure. We miss his sense, if we see in these names of the gods only the poorer superficial meanings of the popular mythological religion. When Heraclitus speaks of the dry or the moist soul, it is of the soul and not the intellect that he is thinking, psuchē and not nous. Psuchē corresponds roughly to the cetas or citta of Indian psychology, nous to buddhi; the dry soul of the Greek thinker to the purified heart-consciousness, śuddha citta, of the Indian psychologists, which in their experience was the first basis for a purified intellect, viśuddha buddhi. The moist soul is that which allows itself to be perturbed by the impure wine of sense ecstasy, emotional excitement, an obscure impulse and inspiration whose source is from a dark under-world. Dionysus is the god of this wine-born ecstasy, the god of the Bacchic mysteries,-of the "walkers in the night, mages, bacchanals, mystics": therefore Heraclitus says that Dionysus and Hades are one. In an opposite sense the ecstatic devotee of the Bhakti path in India reproaches the exclusive seeker by the way of thought-discernment with his "dry knowledge", using Heraclitus' epithet, but with a pejorative and not a laudatory significance.
To ignore the influence of the mystic thought and its methods of self-expression on the intellectual thinking of the Greeks from Pythagoras to Plato is to falsify the historical procession of the human mind. It was enveloped at first in the symbolic, intuitive, esoteric style and discipline of the Mystics,-Vedic and Vedantic seers, Orphic secret teachers, Egyptian priests. From that veil it emerged along the path of a metaphysical philosophy still related to the Mystics by the source of its fundamental ideas, its first aphoristic and cryptic style, its attempt to seize directly upon truth by intellectual vision rather than arrive at it by careful ratiocination, but nevertheless intellectual in its method and aim. This is the first period of the Darshanas in India, in Greece of the early intellectual thinkers. Afterwards came the full tide of philosophic rationalism, Buddha or the Buddhists and the logical philosophers in India, in Greece the Sophists and Socrates with all their splendid progeny; with them the intellectual method did not indeed begin, but came to its own and grew to its fullness. Heraclitus belongs to the transition, not to the noontide of the reason; he is even its most characteristic representative. Hence his cryptic style, hence his brief and burdened thought and the difficulty we feel when we try to clarify and entirely rationalise his significances. The ignoring of the Mystics, our pristine fathers, pūrve pitaraḥ, is the great defect of the modern account of our thought-evolution.
Heraclitus - II
What precisely is the key-note of Heraclitus' thinking, where has he found his starting-point, or what are the grand lines of his philosophy? For if his thought is not developed in the severe systematic method of later thinkers, if it does not come down to us in large streams of subtle reasoning and opulent imagery like Plato's but in detached aphoristic sentences aimed like arrows at truth, still they are not really scattered philosophical reflections. There is an inter-relation, an inter-dependence; they all start logically from his fundamental view of existence itself and go back to it for their constant justification.
As in Indian, so in Greek philosophy the first question for thought was the problem of the One and the Many. We see everywhere a multiplicity of things and beings; is it real or only phenomenal or practical, māyā, vyavahāra? Has individual man, for instance,-the question which concerns us most nearly,-an essential and immortal existence of his own or is he simply a phenomenal and transient result in the evolution or play of some one original principle, Matter, Mind, Spirit, which is the only real reality of existence? Does unity exist at all and, if so, is it a unity of sum or of primordial principle, a result or an origin, a oneness of totality or a oneness of nature or a oneness of essence,-the various standpoints of Pluralism, of Sankhya, of Vedanta? Or if both the One and the Many are real, what are the relations between these two eternal principles of being, or are they reconciled in an Absolute beyond them? These are no barren questions of logic, no battle of cloudy metaphysical abstractions, as the practical and sensational man would have us contemptuously believe; for on our answer to them depends our conception of God, of existence, of the world and of human life and destiny.
Heraclitus, differing in this, as Mr. Ranade reminds us, from Anaximander who like our Mayavadins denied true reality to the Many and from Empedocles who thought the All to be alternately one and many, believed unity and multiplicity to be both of them real and coexistent. Existence is then eternally one and eternally many,-even as Ramanuja and Madhwa have concluded, though in a very different spirit and from a quite different standpoint. Heraclitus' view arose from his strong concrete intuition of things, his acute sense of universal realities; for in our experience of the cosmos we do find always and inseparably this eternal coexistence and cannot really escape from it. Everywhere our gaze on the Many reveals to us an eternal oneness, no matter what we fix on as the principle of that oneness; yet is that unity inoperative except by the multiplicity of its powers and forms, nor do we anywhere see it void of or apart from its own multiplicity. One Matter, but many atoms, plasms, bodies; one Energy, but many forces; one Mind or at least Mind-stuff, but many mental beings; one Spirit, but many souls. Perhaps periodically this multiplicity goes back, is dissolved into, is swallowed up by the One from which it was originally evolved; but still the fact that it has evolved and got involved again, compels us to suppose a possibility and even a necessity of its renewed evolution: it is not then really destroyed. The Adwaitin by his Yoga goes back to the One, feels himself merged, believes that he has got rid of the Many, proved perhaps their unreality; but it is the achievement of an individual, of one of the Many, and the Many go on existing in spite of it. The achievement proves only that there is a plane of consciousness on which the soul can realise and not merely perceive by the intellect the oneness of the Spirit, and it proves nothing else. Therefore, on this truth of eternal oneness and eternal multiplicity Heraclitus fixes and anchors himself; from his firm acceptance of it, not reasoning it away but accepting all its consequences, flows all the rest of his philosophy.
Still, one question remains to be resolved before we can move a step farther. Since there is an eternal One, what is that? Is it Force, Mind, Matter, Soul? or, since Matter has many principles, is it some one principle of Matter which has evolved all the rest or which by some power of its own activity has changed into all that we see? The old Greek thinkers conceived of cosmic Substance as possessed of four elements, omitting or not having arrived at the fifth, Ether, in which Indian analysis found the first and original principle. In seeking the nature of the original substance they fixed then on one or other of these four as the primordial Nature, one finding it in Air, another in Water, while Heraclitus, as we have seen, describes or symbolises the source and reality of all things as an ever-living Fire. "No man or god" he says "has created the universe, but ever there was and is and will be the ever-living Fire."
In the Veda, in the early language of the Mystics generally, the names of the elements or primary principles of Substance were used with a clearly symbolic significance. The symbol of water is thus used constantly in the Rig Veda. It is said that in the beginning was the inconscient Ocean out of which the One was born by the vastness of His energy; but it is clear from the language of the hymn that no physical ocean is meant, but rather the unformed chaos of inconscient being in which the Divine, the Godhead lay concealed in a darkness enveloped by greater darkness. The seven active principles of existence are similarly spoken of as rivers or waters; we hear of the seven rivers, the great water, the four superior rivers, in a context which shows their symbolic significance. We see this image fixed in the Puranic mythus of Vishnu sleeping on the serpent Infinite in the milky ocean. But even as early as the Rig Veda, ether is the highest symbol of the Infinite, the apeiron of the Greeks; water is that of the same Infinite in its aspect as the original substance; fire is the creative power, the active energy of the Infinite; air, the life-principle, is spoken of as that which brings down fire out of the ethereal heavens into the earth. Yet these were not merely symbols. The Vedic Mystics held, it is clear, a close connection and effective parallelism to exist between psychical and physical activities, between the action of Light, for instance, and the phenomena of mental illumination; fire was to them at once the luminous divine energy, the Seer-Will of the universal Godhead active and creative of all things, and the physical principle creative of the substantial forms of the universe, burning secretly in all life.
It is doubtful how far the earlier Greek philosophic thinkers preserved any of these complex conceptions in their generalisations about the original principle. But Heraclitus has clearly an idea of something more than a physical substance or energy in his concept of the ever-living Fire. Fire is to him the physical aspect, as it were, of a great burning creative, formative and destructive force, the sum of all whose processes is a constant and unceasing change. The idea of the One which is eternally becoming Many and the Many which is eternally becoming One and of that One therefore not so much as stable substance or essence as active Force, a sort of substantial Will-to-become, is the foundation of Heraclitus' philosophy.
Nietzsche, whom Mr. Ranade rightly affiliates to Heraclitus, Nietzsche, the most vivid, concrete and suggestive of modern thinkers, as is Heraclitus among the early Greeks, founded his whole philosophical thought on this conception of existence as a vast Will-to-become and of the world as a play of Force; divine Power was to him the creative Word, the beginning of all things and that to which life aspires. But he affirms Becoming only and excludes Being from his view of things; hence his philosophy is in the end unsatisfactory, insufficient, lop-sided; it stimulates, but solves nothing. Heraclitus does not exclude Being from the data of the problem of existence, although he will not make any opposition or gulf between that and Becoming. By his conception of existence as at once one and many, he is bound to accept these two aspects of his ever-living Fire as simultaneously true, true in each other; Being is an eternal becoming and yet the Becoming resolves itself into eternal being. All is in flux, for all is change of becoming; we cannot step into the same waters twice, for it is other and yet other waters that are flowing on. And yet, with his keen eye on the truth of things, preoccupied though he was with this aspect of existence, he could not help seeing another truth behind it. The waters into which we step, are and are not the same; our own existence is an eternity and an inconstant transience; we are and we are not. Heraclitus does not solve the contradiction; he states it and in his own way tries to give some account of its process.
That process he sees as a constant change and a changing back, an exchange and an interchange in a constant whole,-managed for the rest by a clash of forces, by a creative and determinative strife, "war which is the father and king of all things." Between Fire as the Being and Fire in the Becoming existence describes a downward and upward movement-pravṛtti and nivṛtti-which has been called the "back-returning road" upon which all travels. These are the master ideas of the thought of Heraclitus.
***
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Two apophthegms of Heraclitus give us the starting-point of his whole thinking. They are his saying that it is wisdom to admit that all things are one and his other saying "One out of all and all out of One." How are we to understand these two pregnant utterances? Must we read them into each other and conclude that for Heraclitus the One only exists as resultant of the many even as the many only exist as a becoming of the One? Mr. Ranade seems to think so; he tells us that this philosophy denies Being and affirms only Becoming,-like Nietzsche, like the Buddhists. But surely this is to read a little too much into Heraclitus' theory of perpetual change, to take it too much by itself. If that was his whole belief, it is difficult to see why he should seek for an original and eternal principle, the ever-living Fire which creates all by its perpetual changing, governs all by its fiery force of the "thunderbolt", resolves all back into itself by a cyclic conflagration, difficult to account for his theory of the upward and downward way, difficult to concede what Mr. Ranade contends, that Heraclitus did hold the theory of a cosmic conflagration or to imagine what could be the result of such a cosmic catastrophe. To reduce all becoming into Nothing? Surely not; Heraclitus' thought is at the very antipodes from speculative Nihilism. Into another kind of becoming? Obviously not, since by an absolute conflagration existing things can only be reduced into their eternal principle of being, into Agni, back into the immortal Fire. Something that is eternal, that is itself eternity, something that is for ever one,-for the cosmos is eternally one and many and does not by becoming cease to be one,-something that is God (Zeus), something that can be imaged as Fire which, if an ever-active force, is yet a substance or at least a substantial force and not merely an abstract Will-to-become,-something out of which all cosmic becoming arises and into which it returns, what is this but eternal Being?
Heraclitus was greatly preoccupied with his idea of eternal becoming, for him the one right account of the cosmos, but his cosmos has still an eternal basis, a unique original principle. That distinguishes his thought radically from Nietzsche's or the Buddhists'. The later Greeks derived from him the idea of the perpetual stream of things, "All things are in flux." The idea of the universe as constant motion and unceasing change was always before him, and yet behind and in it all he saw too a constant principle of determination and even a mysterious principle of identity. Every day, he says, it is a new sun that rises; yes, but if the sun is always new, exists only by change from moment to moment, like all things in Nature, still it is the same ever-living Fire that rises with each Dawn in the shape of the sun. We can never step again into the same stream, for ever other and other waters are flowing; and yet, says Heraclitus, "we do and we do not enter into the same waters, we are and we are not." The sense is clear; there is an identity in things, in all existences, sarvabhūtāni, as well as a constant changing; there is a Being as well as a Becoming and by that we have an eternal and real existence as well as a temporary and apparent, are not merely a constant mutation but a constant identical existence. Zeus exists, a sempiternal active Fire and eternal Word, a One by which all things are unified, all laws and results perpetually determined, all measures unalterably maintained. Day and Night are one, Death and Life are one, Youth and Age are one, Good and Evil are one, because that is One and all these are only its various shapes and appearances.
Heraclitus would not have accepted a purely psychological principle of Self as the origin of things, but in essence he is not very far from the Vedantic position. The Buddhists of the Nihilistic school used in their own way the image of the stream and the image of the fire. They saw, as Heraclitus saw, that nothing in the world is for two moments the same even in the most insistent continuity of forms. The flame maintains itself unchanged in appearance, but every moment it is another and not the same fire; the stream is sustained in its flow by ever new waters. From this they drew the conclusion that there is no essence of things, nothing self-existent; the apparent becoming is all that we can call existence, behind it there is eternal Nothing, the absolute Void, or perhaps an original Non-Being. Heraclitus saw, on the contrary, that if the form of the flame only exists by a constant change, a constant exchange rather of the substance of the wick into the substance of the fiery tongue, yet there must be a principle of their existence common to them which thus converts itself from one form into another;-even if the substance of the flame is always changing, the principle of Fire is always the same and produces always the same results of energy, maintains always the same measures.
The Upanishad too describes the cosmos as a universal motion and becoming; it is all this that is mobile in the mobility, jagatyāṁ jagat,-the very word for universe, jagat, having the radical sense of motion, so that the whole universe, the macrocosm, is one vast principle of motion and therefore of change and instability, while each thing in the universe is in itself a microcosm of the same motion and instability Existences are "all becomings"; the Self-existent Atman, Swayambhu, has become all becomings, ātmā eva abhūt sarvāṇi bhūtāni. The relation between God and World is summed up in the phrase, "It is He that has moved out everywhere, sa paryagāt"; He is the Lord, the Seer and Thinker, who becoming everywhere- Heraclitus' Logos, his Zeus, his One out of which come all things-"has fixed all things rightly according to their nature from years sempiternal",- Heraclitus' "All things are fixed and determined." Substitute his Fire for the Vedantic Atman and there is nothing in the expressions of the Upanishad which the Greek thinker would not have accepted as another figure of his own thought. And do not the Upanishads use among other images this very symbol of the Fire? "As one Fire has entered into the world and taken shapes according to the various forms in the world," so the one Being has become all these names and forms and yet remains the One. Heraclitus tells us precisely the same thing; God is all contraries, "He takes various shapes just as fire, when it is mingled with spices, is named according to the savour of each." Each one names Him according to his pleasure, says the Greek seer, and He accepts all names and yet accepts none, not even the highest name of Zeus. "He consents and yet at the same time does not consent to be called by the name of Zeus." So too said Indian Dirghatamas of old in his long hymn of the divine Mysteries in the Rig Veda, "One existent the sages call by many names." Though He assumes all these forms, says the Upanishad, He has no form that the vision can seize, He whose name is a mighty splendour. We see again how close are the thoughts of the Greek and very often even his expressions and images to the sense and style of the Vedic and Vedantic sages.
We must put each of Heraclitus' apophthegms into its right place if we would understand his thought. "It is wise to admit that all things are one,"-not merely, be it noted, that they came from oneness and will go back to oneness, but that they are one, now and always,-all is, was and ever will be the ever-living Fire. All seems to our experience to be many, an eternal becoming of manifold existences; where is there in it any principle of eternal identity? True, says Heraclitus, so it seems; but wisdom looks beyond and does see the identity of all things; Night and Day, Life and Death, the good and the evil, all are one, the eternal, the identical; those who see only a difference in objects, do not know the truth of the objects they observe. "Hesiod did not know day and night; for it is the One,"-esti gar hen, asti hi ekam. Now, an eternal and identical which all things are, is precisely what we mean by Being; it is precisely what is denied by those who see only Becoming. The Nihilistic Buddhists1 insisted that there were only so many ideas, vijñānāni, and impermanent forms which were but the combination of parts and elements: no oneness, no identity anywhere; get beyond ideas and forms, you get to self-extinction, to the Void, to Nothing. Yet one must posit a principle of unity somewhere, if not at the base or in the secret being of things, yet in their action. The Buddhists had to posit their universal principle of Karma which, when you think of it, comes after all to a universal energy as the cause of the world, a creator and preserver of unchanging measures. Nietzsche denied Being, but had to speak of a universal Will-to-be; which again, when you come to think of it, seems to be no more than a translation of the Upanishadic tapo brahma, "Will-Energy is Brahman." The later Sankhya denied the unity of conscious existences, but asserted the unity of Nature, Prakriti, which is again at once the original principle and substance of things and the creative energy, the phusis of the Greeks. It is indeed wise to agree that all things are one; for vision drives at that, the soul and the heart reach out to that, thought comes circling round to it in the very act of denial.
Heraclitus saw what all must see who look at the world with any attention, that there is something in all this motion and change and differentiation which insists on stability, which goes back to sameness, which assures unity, which triumphs into eternity. It has always the same measures; it is, was and ever will be. We are the same in spite of all our differences; we start from the same origin, proceed by the same universal laws, live, differ and strive in the bosom of an eternal oneness, are seeking always for that which binds all beings together and makes all things one. Each sees it in his own way, lays stress on this or that aspect of it, loses sight of or diminishes other aspects, gives it therefore a different name-even as Heraclitus, attracted by its aspect of creative and destructive Force, gave it the name of Fire. But when he generalises, he puts it widely enough; it is the One that is All, it is the All that is One,-Zeus, eternity, the Fire. He could have said with the Upanishad, "All this is the Brahman", sarvaṁ khalu idaṁ brahma, though he could not have gone on and said, "This Self is the Brahman", but would have declared rather of Agni what a Vedantic formula says of Vayu, tvaṁ pratyakṣaṁ brahmāsi, "Thou art manifest Brahman."
But we may admit the One in different ways. The Adwaitins affirmed the One, the Being, but put away "all things" as Maya, or they recognised the immanence of the Being in these becomings which are yet not-Self, not That. Vaishnava philosophy saw existence as eternally one in the Being, God, eternally many by His nature or conscious-energy in the souls whom He becomes or who exist in her. In Greece also Anaximander denied the multiple reality of the Becoming. Empedocles affirmed that the All is eternally one and many; all is one which becomes many and then again goes back to oneness. But Heraclitus will not so cut the knot of the riddle. "No," he says in effect, "I hold to my idea of the eternal oneness of all things; never do they cease to be one. It is all my ever-living Fire that takes various shapes and names, changes itself into all that is and yet remains itself, not at all by any illusion or mere appearance of becoming, but with a severe and positive reality." All things then are in their reality and substance and law and reason of their being the One; the One in its shapes, values, changings becomes really all things. It changes and is yet immutable: for it does not increase or diminish, nor does it lose for a moment its eternal nature and identity which is that of the ever-living Fire. Many values which reduce themselves to the same standard and judge of all values; many forces which go back to the same unalterable energy; many becomings which both represent and amount to one identical Being.
Here Heraclitus brings in his formula of "One out of all and all out of One", which is his account of the process of the cosmos just as his formula "All things are one" is his account of the eternal truth of the cosmos. One, he says, in the process of the cosmos is always becoming all things from moment to moment, hence the eternal flux of things; but all things also are eternally going back to their principle of oneness; hence the unity of the cosmos, the sameness behind the flux of becoming, the stability of measures, the conservation of energy in all changes. This he explains farther by his theory of change as in its character a constant exchange. But is there then no end to this simultaneous upward and downward motion of things? As the downward has so far prevailed as to create the cosmos, will not the upward too prevail so as to dissolve it back into the ever-living Fire? Here we come to the question whether Heraclitus did or did not hold the theory of a periodic conflagration or pralaya. "Fire will come on all things and judge and convict them." If he held it, then we have again another striking coincidence of Heraclitus' thought with our familiar Indian notions, the periodic pralaya, the Puranic conflagration of the world by the appearance of the twelve suns, the Vedantic theory of the eternal cycles of manifestation and withdrawal from manifestation. In fact, both the lines of thought are essentially the same and had to arrive inevitably at the same conclusions.
Buddha himself remained silent on this question; his goal of Nirvana was a negation of phenomenal existence, but not necessarily a denial of any kind of existence. ↩
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We have the same idea of an evolution of successive conditions of energy out of a primal substance-force in the Indian theory of Sankhya. There indeed the system proposed is more complete and satisfying. It starts with the original or root energy, mūla prakṛti, which as the first substance, pradhāna, evolves by development and change into five successive principles. Ether, not fire, is the first principle, ignored by the Greeks, but rediscovered by modern Science;1 there follow air, fire, the igneous, radiant and electric energy, water, earth, the fluid and solid. The Sankhya, like Anaximenes, puts Air first of the four principles admitted by the Greeks, though it does not like him make it the original substance, and it thus differs from the order of Heraclitus. But it gives to the principle of fire the function of creating all forms,-as Agni in the Veda is the great builder of the worlds,-and here at least it meets his thought; for it is as the energetic principle behind all formation and mutation that Heraclitus must have chosen Fire as his symbol and material representative of the One. We may remember in this connection how far modern Science has gone to justify these old thinkers by the importance it gives to electricity and radio-active forces- Heraclitus' fire and thunderbolt, the Indian triple Agni-in the formation of atoms and in the transmutation of energy.
But the Greeks failed to go forward to that final discrimination which India attributed to Kapila, the supreme analytical thinker,-the discrimination between Prakriti and her cosmic principles, her twenty-four tattwas forming the subjective and objective aspects of Nature, and between Prakriti and Purusha, Conscious-Soul and Nature-Energy. Therefore while in the Sankhya ether, fire and the rest are only principles of the objective evolution of Prakriti, evolutionary aspects of the original phusis, the early Greeks could not get back beyond these aspects of Nature to the idea of a pure energy, nor could they at all account for her subjective side. The Fire of Heraclitus has to do duty at once for the original substance of all Matter and for God and Eternity. This preoccupation with Nature-Energy and the failure to fathom its relations with Soul has persisted in modern scientific thought, and we find there too the same attempt to identify some primary principle of Nature, ether or electricity, with the original Force.
However that may be, the theory of the creation of the world by some kind of evolutionary change out of the original substance or energy, by pariṇāma, is common to the early Greek and the Indian systems, however they may differ about the nature of the original phusis. The distinction of Heraclitus among the early Greek sages is his conception of the upward and downward road, one and the same in the descent and the return. It corresponds to the Indian idea of nivṛtti and pravṛtti, the double movement of the Soul and Nature,-pravṛtti, the moving out and forward, nivṛtti, the moving back and in. The Indian thinkers were preoccupied with this double principle so far as it touches the action of the individual soul entering into the procession of Nature and drawing back from it; but still they saw a similar, a periodic movement forward and back of Nature itself which leads to an ever-repeated cycle of creation and dissolution; they held the idea of a periodic pralaya. Heraclitus' theory would seem to demand a similar conclusion. Otherwise we must suppose that the downward tendency, once in action, has always the upper hand over the upward or that cosmos is eternally proceeding out of the original substance and eternally returning to it, but never actually returns. The Many are then eternal not only in power of manifestation, but in actual fact of manifestation.
It is possible that Heraclitus may so have thought, but it is not the logical conclusion of his theory; it contradicts the evident suggestion of his metaphor about the road which implies a starting-point and a point of return; and we have too the distinct statement of the Stoics that he believed in the theory of conflagration,-an assertion which they are hardly likely to have made if this were not generally accepted as his teaching. The modern arguments against enumerated by Mr. Ranade are founded upon misconceptions. Heraclitus' affirmation is not simply that the One is always Many, the Many always One, but in his own words, "out of all the One and out of One all." Plato's phrasing of the thought, "the reality is both many and one and in its division it is always being brought together," states the same idea in different language. It means a constant current and back-current of change, the upward and downward road, and we may suppose that as the One by downward change becomes completely the All in the descending process, yet remains eternally the one ever-living Fire, so the All by upward change may resort completely to the One and yet essentially exist, since it can again return into various being by the repetition of the downward movement. All difficulty disappears if we remember that what is implied is a process of evolution and involution,-so too the Indian word for creation, sṛṣṭi, means a release or bringing forth of what is held in, latent,-and that the conflagration destroys existing forms, but not the principle of multiplicity. There will be then no inconsistency at all in Heraclitus' theory of a periodic conflagration; it is rather, that being the highest expression of change, the complete logic of his system.
Now again rejected, though that does not seem to be indubitable or final. ↩
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If it is the law of Change that determines the evolution and involution of the one downward and upward road, the same law prevails all along the path, through all its steps and returns, in all the million transactions of the wayside. There is everywhere the law of exchange and interchange, amoibē. The unity and the multiplicity have at every moment this active relation to each other. The One is constantly exchanging itself for the many; that gold has been given, you have instead these commodities, but in fact they are only so much value of the gold. The many are constantly exchanging themselves for the One; these commodities are given, disappear, are destroyed, we say, but in their place there is the gold, the original substance-energy to the value of the commodities. You see the sun and you think it is the same sun always, but really it is a new sun that rises each day; for it is the Fire's constant giving of itself in exchange for the elemental commodities that compose the sun which preserves its form, its energy, its movement, all its measures. Science shows us that this is true of all things, of the human body, for instance; it is always the same, but it preserves its apparent identity only by a constant change. There is a constant destruction, yet there is no destruction. Energy distributes itself, but never really dissipates itself; change and unalterable conservation of energy in the change are the law, not destruction. If this world of multiplicity is destroyed in the end by Fire, yet there is no end and it is not destroyed, but only exchanged for the Fire. Moreover, there is exchange between all these becomings which are only so many active values of the Being, commodities that are a fixed value and measure of the universal gold. Fire takes of its substance from one form and gives to another, changes one apparent value of its substance into another apparent value, but the substance-energy remains the same and the new value is the equivalent of the old,-as when it turns fuel into smoke and cinders and ashes. Modern Science with a more accurate knowledge of what actually happens in this change, yet confirms Heraclitus' conclusion. It is the law of the conservation of energy.
Practically, the active secret of life is there; all life physical or mental or merely dynamic maintains itself by constant change and interchange. Still, Heraclitus' account is so far not altogether satisfactory. The measure, the value of the energy exchanged remains unaltered even when the form is altered, but why should also the cosmic commodities we have for the universal gold be fixed and in a way unchanging? What is the explanation, how comes about this eternity of principles and elements and kinds of combination and this persistence and recurrence of the same forms which we observe in the cosmos? Why in this constant cosmic flux should everything after all remain the same? Why should the sun, though always new, be yet for all practical purposes the same sun? Why should the stream be, as Heraclitus himself admits, the same stream although it is ever other and other waters that are flowing? It was in this connection that Plato brought in his eternal, ideal plane of fixed ideas, by which he seems to have meant at once an originating real-idea and an original ideal schema for all things. An idealistic philosophy of the Indian type might say that this force, the Shakti which you call Fire, is a consciousness which preserves by its energy its original scheme of ideas and corresponding forms of things But Heraclitus gives us another account, not quite satisfactory, yet profound and full of suggestive truth; it is contained in his striking phrases about war and justice and tension and the Furies pursuing the transgressor of measures. He is the first thinker to see the world entirely in the terms of Power.
What is the nature of this exchange? It is strife, eris, it is war, polemos! What is the rule and result of the war? It is justice. How acts that justice? By a just tension and compensation of forces which produce the harmony of things and therefore, we presume, their stability. "War is the father of all and the king of all"; "All things becoming according to strife"; "To know that strife is justice"; these are his master apophthegms in this matter. At first we do not see why exchange should be strife; it would seem rather to be commerce. Strife there is, but why should there not also be peaceful and willing interchange? Heraclitus will have none of it; no peace! he would agree with the modern Teuton that commerce itself is a department of War. It is true there is a commerce, gold for commodities, commodities for gold, but the commerce itself and all its circumstances are governed by a forceful, more, a violent compulsion of the universal Fire. That is what he means by the Furies pursuing the sun; "for fear of Him" says the Upanishad "the wind blows ... and death runs." And between all beings there is a constant trial of strength; by that warfare they come into being, by that their measures are maintained. We see that he is right; he has caught the initial aspect of cosmic Nature. Everything here is a clash of forces and by that clash and struggle and clinging and wrestling things not only come into being, but are maintained in being. Karma? Laws? But different laws meet and compete and by their tension the balance of the world is maintained. Karma? It is the forcible justice of an eternal compelling Power and it is the Furies pursuing us if we transgress our measures.
War, contends Heraclitus, is not mere injustice, chaotic violence; it is justice, although a violent justice, the only kind possible. Again, from that point of view, we see that he is right. By the energy expended and its value shall the fruits be determined, and where two forces meet, expenditure of energy means a trial of strength. Shall not then the rewards be to the strong according to his strength and to the weak according to his weakness? So it is at least in the world, the primal law, although subject to the help of the weak by the strong which need not after all be an injustice or a violation of measures, in spite of Nietzsche and Heraclitus. And is there not after all sometimes a tremendous strength behind weakness, the very strength of the pressure on the oppressed which brings its terrible reaction, the back return of the bow, Zeus, the eternal Fire, observing his measures?
Not only between being and being, force and force is there war, but within each there is an eternal opposition, a tension of contraries, and it is this tension which creates the balance necessary to harmony. Harmony then there is, for cosmos itself is in its result a harmony; but it is so because in its process it is war, tension, opposition, a balance of eternal contraries. Real peace there cannot be, unless by peace you mean a stable tension, a balance of power between hostile forces, a sort of mutual neutralisation of excesses. Peace cannot create, cannot maintain anything, and Homer's prayer that war might perish from among Gods and men is a monstrous absurdity, for that would mean the end of the world. A periodic end there may be, not by peace or reconciliation, but by conflagration, by an attack of Fire, to pur epelthon, a fiery judgment and conviction. Force created the world, Force is the world, Force by its violence maintains the world, Force shall end the world,-and eternally re-create it.
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Because of this insistence on the relativity of good and evil, Heraclitus is thought to have enunciated some kind of supermoralism; but it is well to see carefully to what this supermoralism of Heraclitus really amounts. Heraclitus does not deny the existence of an absolute; but for him the absolute is to be found in the One, in the Divine,-not the gods, but the one supreme Divinity, the Fire. It has been objected that he attributes relativity to God, because he says that the first principle is willing and yet not willing to be called by the name of Zeus. But surely this is to misunderstand him altogether. The name Zeus expresses only the relative human idea of the Godhead; therefore while God accepts the name, He is not bound or limited by it. All our concepts of Him are partial and relative; "He is named according to the pleasure of each." This is nothing more nor less than the truth proclaimed by the Vedas, "One existent the sages call by many names." Brahman is willing to be called Vishnu, and yet he is not willing, because he is also Brahma and Maheshwara and all the gods and the world and all principles and all that is, and yet not any of these things, neti neti. As men approach him, so he accepts them. But the One to Heraclitus as to the Vedantin is absolute.
This is quite clear from all his sayings; day and night, good and evil are one, because they are the One in their essence and in the One the distinctions we make between them disappear. There is a Word, a Reason in all things, a Logos, and that Reason is one; only men by the relativeness of their mentality turn it each into his personal thought and way of looking at things and live according to this variable relativity. It follows that there is an absolute, a divine way of looking at things. "To God all things are good and just, but men hold some things to be good, others unjust." There is then an absolute good, an absolute beauty, an absolute justice of which all things are the relative expression. There is a divine order in the world; each thing fulfils its nature according to its place in the order and in its place and symmetry in the one Reason of things is good, just and beautiful precisely because it fulfils that Reason according to the eternal measures. To take an example, the world war may be regarded as an evil by some, a sheer horror of carnage, to others because of the new possibilities it opens to mankind, it may seem a good. It is at once good and evil. But that is the relative view; in its entirety, in its fulfilment in each and all of its circumstances of a divine purpose, a divine justice, a divine force executing itself in the large reason of things, it is from the absolute point of view good and just-to God, not to man.
Does it follow that the relative view-point has no validity at all? Not for a moment. On the contrary, it must be the expression, proper to each mentality according to the necessity of its nature and standpoint, of the divine Law. Heraclitus says that plainly; "Fed are all human laws by one, the divine." That sentence ought to be quite sufficient to protect Heraclitus against the charge of antinomianism. True, no human law is the absolute expression of the divine justice, but it draws its validity, its sanction from that and is valid for its purpose, in its place, in its proper time, has its relative necessity. Even though men's notions of good and justice vary in the mutations of the becoming, yet human good and justice persist in the stream of things, preserve a measure Heraclitus admits relative standards, but as a thinker he is obliged to go beyond them. All is at once one and many, an absolute and a relative, and all the relations of the many are relativities, yet are fed by, go back to, persist by that in them which is absolute.
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The ideas of Heraclitus on which I have so far laid stress, are general, philosophical, metaphysical; they glance at those first truths of existence, devānāṁ prathamā vratāni,1 for which philosophy first seeks because they are the key to all other truths. But what is their practical effect on human life and aspiration? For that is in the end the real value of philosophy for man, to give him light on the nature of his being, the principles of his psychology, his relations with the world and with God, the fixed lines or the great possibilities of his destiny. It is the weakness of most European philosophy-not the ancient-that it lives too much in the clouds and seeks after pure metaphysical truth too exclusively for its own sake; therefore it has been a little barren because much too indirect in its bearing on life. It is the great distinction of Nietzsche among later European thinkers to have brought back something of the old dynamism and practical force into philosophy, although in the stress of this tendency he may have neglected unduly the dialectical and metaphysical side of philosophical thinking. No doubt, in seeking Truth we must seek it for its own sake first and not start with any preconceived practical aim and prepossession which would distort our disinterested view of things; but when Truth has been found, its bearing on life becomes of capital importance and is the solid justification of the labour spent in our research. Indian philosophy has always understood its double function; it has sought the Truth not only as an intellectual pleasure or the natural dharma of the reason, but in order to know how man may live by the Truth or strive after it; hence its intimate influence on the religion, the social ideas, the daily life of the people, its immense dynamic power on the mind and actions of Indian humanity. The Greek thinkers, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, the Stoics and Epicureans, had also this practical aim and dynamic force, but it acted only on the cultured few. That was because Greek philosophy, losing its ancient affiliation to the Mystics, separated itself from the popular religion; but as ordinarily Philosophy alone can give light to Religion and save it from crudeness, ignorance and superstition, so Religion alone can give, except for a few, spiritual passion and effective power to Philosophy and save it from becoming unsubstantial, abstract and sterile. It is a misfortune for both when the divine sisters part company.
But when we seek among Heraclitus' sayings for the human application of his great fundamental thoughts, we are disappointed. He gives us little direct guidance and on the whole leaves us to draw our own profit from the packed opulence of his first ideas. What may be called his aristocratic view of life, we might regard possibly as a moral result of his philosophical conception of Power as the nature of the original principle. He tells us that the many are bad, the few good and that one is to him equal to thousands, if he be the best. Power of knowledge, power of character,-character, he says, is man's divine force,-power and excellence generally are the things that prevail in human life and are supremely valuable, and these things in their high and pure degree are rare among men, they are the difficult attainment of the few. From that, true enough so far as it goes, we might deduce a social and political philosophy. But the democrat might well answer that if there is an eminent and concentrated virtue, knowledge and force in the one or the few, so too there is a diffused virtue, knowledge and force in the many which acting collectively may outweigh and exceed isolated or rare excellences. If the king, the sage, the best are Vishnu himself, as old Indian thought also affirmed, to a degree to which the ordinary man, prākṛto janaḥ, cannot pretend, so also are "the five", the group, the people. The Divine is samaṣṭi as well as vyaṣṭi, manifested in the collectivity as well as in the individual, and the justice on which Heraclitus insists demands that both should have their effect and their value; they depend indeed and draw on each other for the effectuation of their excellences.
Other sayings of Heraclitus are interesting enough, as when he affirms the divine element in human laws,-and that is also a profound and fruitful sentence. His views on the popular religion are interesting, but move on the surface and do not carry us very far even on the surface. He rejects with a violent contempt the current degradation of the old mystic formulas and turns from them to the true mysteries, those of Nature and of our being, that Nature which, as he says, loves to be hidden, is full of mysteries, ever occult. It is a sign that the lore of the early Mystics had been lost, the spiritual sense had departed out of their symbols, even as in Vedic India; but there took place in Greece no new and powerful movement which could, as in India, replace them by new symbols, new and more philosophic restatements of their hidden truths, new disciplines, schools of Yoga. Attempts, such as that of Pythagoras, were made; but Greece at large followed the turn given by Heraclitus, developed the cult of the reason and left the remnants of the old occult religion to become a solemn superstition and a conventional pomp.
Doubly interesting is his condemnation of animal sacrifice; it is, he says, a vain attempt at purification by defilement of oneself with blood, as if we were to cleanse mud-stained feet with mud. Here we see the same trend of revolt against an ancient and universal religious practice as that which destroyed in India the sacrificial system of the Vedic religion,-although Buddha's great impulse of compassion was absent from the mind of Heraclitus: pity could never have become a powerful motive among the old Mediterranean races. But the language of Heraclitus shows us that the ancient system of sacrifice in Greece and in India was not a mere barbaric propitiation of savage deities, as modern inquiry has falsely concluded; it had a psychological significance, purification of the soul as well as propitiation of higher and helpful powers, and was therefore in all probability mystic and symbolical; for purification was, as we know, one of the master ideas of the ancient Mysteries. In India of the Gita, in the development of Judaism by the prophets and by Jesus, while the old physical symbols were discouraged and especially the blood-rite, the psychological idea of sacrifice was saved, emphasised and equipped with subtler symbols, such as the Christian Eucharist and the offerings of the devout in the Shaiva or Vaishnava temples. But Greece with its rational bent and its insufficient religious sense was unable to save its religion; it tended towards that sharp division between philosophy and science on one side and religion on the other which has been so peculiar a characteristic of the European mind. Here too Heraclitus was, as in so many other directions, a forerunner, an indicator of the natural bent of occidental thought.
Equally striking is his condemnation of idol-worship, one of the earliest in human history,-"he who prays to an image is chattering to a stone wall." The intolerant violence of this protestant rationalism and positivism makes Heraclitus again a precursor of a whole movement of the human mind. It is not indeed a religious protest such as that of Mahomed against the naturalistic, Pagan and idolatrous polytheism of the Arabs or of the Protestants against the aesthetic and emotional saint-worship of the Catholic Church, its Mariolatry and use of images and elaborate ritual; its motive is philosophic, rational, psychological. Heraclitus was not indeed a pure rationalist He believes in the Gods, but as psychological presences, cosmic powers, and he is too impatient of the grossness of the physical image, its hold on the senses, its obscuration of the psychological significance of the godheads to see that it is not to the stone, but to the divine person figured in the stone that the prayer is offered. It is noticeable that in his conception of the gods he is kin to the old Vedic seers, though not at all a religious mystic in his temperament. The Vedic religion seems to have excluded physical images and it was the protestant movements of Jainism and Buddhism which either introduced or at least popularised and made general the worship of images in India. Here too Heraclitus prepares the way for the destruction of the old religion, the reign of pure philosophy and reason and the void which was filled up by Christianity; for man cannot live by reason alone. When it was too late, some attempt was made to re-spiritualise the old religion, and there was the remarkable effort of Julian and Libanius to set up a regenerated Paganism against triumphant Christianity; but the attempt was too unsubstantial, too purely philosophic, empty of the dynamic power of the religious spirit. Europe had killed its old creeds beyond revival and had to turn for its religion to Asia.
Thus, for the general life of man Heraclitus has nothing to give us beyond his hint of an aristocratic principle in society and politics,-and we may note that this aristocratic bent was very strong in almost all the subsequent Greek philosophers. In religion his influence tended to the destruction of the old creed without effectively putting anything more profound in its place; though not himself a pure rationalist, he prepared the way for philosophic rationalism. But even without religion philosophy by itself can give us at least some light on the spiritual destiny of man, some hope of the infinite, some ideal perfection after which we can strive. Plato who was influenced by Heraclitus, tried to do this for us; his thought sought after God, tried to seize the ideal, had its hope of a perfect human society. We know how the Neo-platonists developed his ideas under the influence of the East and how they affected Christianity. The Stoics, still more directly the intellectual descendants of Heraclitus, arrived at very remarkable and fruitful ideas of human possibility and a powerful psychological discipline,-as we should say in India, a Yoga,-by which they hoped to realise their ideal. But what has Heraclitus himself to give us? Nothing directly; we have to gather for ourselves whatever we can from his first principles and his cryptic sentences.
Heraclitus was regarded in ancient times as a pessimistic thinker and we have one or two sayings of his from which we can, if we like, deduce the old vain gospel of the vanity of things. Time, he says, is playing draughts like a child, amusing itself with counters, building castles on the sea-shore only to throw them down again. If that is the last word, then all human effort and aspiration are vain. But on what primary philosophical conception does this discouraging sentence depend? Everything turns on that; for in itself this is no more than an assertion of a self-evident fact, the mutability of things and the recurrent transiency of forms. But if the principles which express themselves in forms are eternal or if there is a Spirit in things which finds its account in the mutations and evolutions of Time and if that Spirit dwells in the human being as the immortal and infinite power of his soul, then no conclusion of the vanity of the world or the vanity of human existence arises. If indeed the original and eternal principle of Fire is a purely physical substance or force, then, truly, since all the great play and effort of consciousness in us must sink and dissolve into that, there can be no permanent spiritual value in our being, much less in our works. But we have seen that Heraclitus' Fire cannot be a purely physical or inconscient principle. Does he then mean that all our existence is merely a continual changeable Becoming, a play or Lila with no purpose in it except the playing and no end except the conviction of the vanity of all cosmic activity by its relapse into the indistinguishable unity of the original principle or substance? For even if that principle, the One to which the many return, be not merely physical or not really physical at all, but spiritual, we may still, like the Mayavadins, affirm the vanity of the world and of our human existence, precisely because the one is not eternal and the other has no eventual aim except its own self-abolition after the conviction of the vanity and unreality of all its temporal interests and purposes. Is the conviction of the world by the one absolute Fire such a conviction of the vanity of all the temporal and relative values of the Many?
That is one sense in which we can understand the thought of Heraclitus. His idea of all things as born of war and existing by strife might, if it stood by itself, lead us to adopt, even if he himself did not clearly arrive at, that conclusion. For if all is a continual struggle of forces, its best aspect only a violent justice and the highest harmony only a tension of opposites without any hope of a divine reconciliation, its end a conviction and destruction by eternal Fire, all our ideal hopes and aspirations are out of place; they have no foundation in the truth of things. But there is another side to the thought of Heraclitus. He says indeed that all things come into being "according to strife", by the clash of forces, are governed by the determining justice of war. He says farther that all is utterly determined, fated. But what then determines? The justice of a clash of forces is not fate; forces in conflict determine indeed, but from moment to moment, according to a constantly changing balance always modifiable by the arising of new forces. If there is predetermination, an inevitable fate in things, then there must be some power behind the conflict which determines them, fixes their measures. What is that power? Heraclitus tells us; all indeed comes into being according to strife, but also all things come into being according to Reason, kat' erin but also kata ton logon. What is this Logos? It is not an inconscient reason in things, for his Fire is not merely an inconscient force, it is Zeus and eternity. Fire, Zeus is Force, but it is also an Intelligence; let us say then that it is an intelligent Force which is the origin and master of things. Nor can this Logos be identical in its nature with the human reason; for that is an individual and therefore relative and partial judgment and intelligence which can only seize on relative truth, not on the true truth of things, but the Logos is one and universal, an absolute reason therefore combining and managing all the relativities of the many. Was not then Philo justified in deducing from this idea of an intelligent Force originating and governing the world, Zeus and Fire, his interpretation of the Logos as "the divine dynamic, the energy and the self-revelation of God"? Heraclitus might not so have phrased it, might not have seen all that his thought contained, but it does contain this sense when his different sayings are fathomed and put together in their consequences.
We get very near the Indian conception of Brahman, the cause, origin and substance of all things, an absolute Existence whose nature is consciousness (Chit) manifesting itself as Force (Tapas, Shakti) and moving in the world of his own being as the Seer and Thinker, kavir manīṣī, an immanent Knowledge-Will in all, vijñānamaya puruṣa, who is the Lord or Godhead, īś, īśvara, deva, and has ordained all things according to their nature from years sempiternal,- Heraclitus' "measures" which the Sun is forced to observe, his "things are utterly determined." This Knowledge-Will is the Logos. The Stoics spoke of it as a seed Logos, spermatikos, reproduced in conscious beings as a number of seed Logoi; and this at once reminds us of the Vedantic prājña puruṣa, the supreme Intelligence who is the Lord and dwells in the sleep-state holding all things in a seed of dense consciousness which works out through the perceptions of the subtle Purusha, the mental Being. Vijnana is indeed a consciousness which sees things, not as the human reason sees them in parts and pieces, in separated and aggregated relations, but in the original reason of their existence and law of their existence, their primal and total truth; therefore it is the seed Logos, the originative and determinant conscious force working as supreme Intelligence and Will. The Vedic seers called it the Truth-consciousness and believed that men also could become truth-conscious, enter into the divine Reason and Will and by the Truth become immortals, anthrōpoi athanatoi.
Does the thought of Heraclitus admit of any such hope as the Vedic seers held and hymned with so triumphant a confidence? or does it even give ground for any aspiration to some kind of a divine supermanhood such as his disciples the Stoics so sternly laboured for or as that of which Nietzsche, the modern Heraclitus, drew a too crude and violent figure? His saying that man is kindled and extinguished as light disappears into night, is commonplace and discouraging enough. But this may after all be only true of the apparent man Is it possible for man. in his becoming to raise his present fixed measures? to elevate his mental, relative, individual reason into direct communion with or direct participation in the divine and absolute reason? to inspire and raise the values of his human force to the higher values of the divine force? to become aware like the gods of an absolute good and an absolute beauty? to lift this mortal to the nature of immortality? Against his melancholy image of human transiency we have that remarkable and cryptic sentence, "the gods are mortals, men immortals", which, taken literally, might mean that the gods are powers that perish and replace each other and the soul of man alone is immortal, but must at least mean that there is in man behind his outward transiency an immortal spirit. We have too his saying, "thou canst not find the limits of the soul", and we have the profoundest of all Heraclitus' utterances, "the kingdom is of the child." If man is in his real being an infinite and immortal spirit, there is surely no reason why he should not awaken to his immortality, arise towards the consciousness of the universal, one and absolute, live in a higher self-realisation. "I have sought for myself" says Heraclitus; and what was it that he found?
But there is one great gap and defect whether in his knowledge of things or his knowledge of the self of man. We see in how many directions the deep divining eye of Heraclitus anticipated the largest and profoundest generalisations of Science and Philosophy and how even his more superficial thoughts indicate later powerful tendencies of the occidental mind, how too some of his ideas influenced such profound and fruitful thinkers as Plato, the Stoics, the Neo-platonists. But in his defect also he is a forerunner; it illustrates the great deficiency of later European thought, such of it at least as has not been profoundly influenced by Asiatic religions or Asiatic mysticism. I have tried to show how often his thought touches and is almost identical with the Vedic and Vedantic. But his knowledge of the truth of things stopped with the vision of the universal reason and the universal force; he seems to have summed up the principle of things in these two first terms, the aspect of consciousness, the aspect of power, a supreme intelligence and a supreme energy. The eye of Indian thought saw a third aspect of the Self and of Brahman; besides the universal consciousness active in divine knowledge, besides the universal force active in divine will, it saw the universal delight active in divine love and joy. European thought, following the line of Heraclitus' thinking, has fixed itself on reason and on force and made them the principles towards whose perfection our being has to aspire. Force is the first aspect of the world, war, the clash of energies; the second aspect, reason, emerges out of the appearance of force in which it is at first hidden and reveals itself as a certain justice, a certain harmony, a certain determining intelligence and reason in things; the third aspect is a deeper secret behind these two, universal delight, love, beauty which taking up the other two can establish something higher than justice, better than harmony, truer than reason,-unity and bliss, the ecstasy of our fulfilled existence. Of this last secret power Western thought has only seen two lower aspects, pleasure and aesthetic beauty; it has missed the spiritual beauty and the spiritual delight. For that reason Europe has never been able to develop a powerful religion of its own; it has been obliged to turn to Asia. Science takes possession of the measures and utilities of Force; rational philosophy pursues reason to its last subtleties; but inspired philosophy and religion can seize hold of the highest secret, uttamaṁ rahasyam.
Heraclitus might have seen it if he had carried his vision a little farther. Force by itself can only produce a balance of forces, the strife that is justice; in that strife there takes place a constant exchange and, once this need of exchange is seen, there arises the possibility of modifying and replacing war by reason as the determinant principle of the exchange. This is the second effort of man, of which Heraclitus did not clearly see the possibility. From exchange we can rise to the highest possible idea of interchange, a mutual dependency of self-giving as the hidden secret of life; from that can grow the power of Love replacing strife and exceeding the cold balance of reason. There is the gate of the divine ecstasy. Heraclitus could not see it, and yet his one saying about the kingdom of the child touches, almost reaches the heart of the secret. For this kingdom is evidently spiritual, it is the crown, the mastery to which the perfected man arrives; and the perfect man is a divine child! He is the soul which awakens to the divine play, accepts it without fear or reserve, gives itself up in a spiritual purity to the Divine, allows the careful and troubled force of man to be freed from care and grief and become the joyous play of the divine Will, his relative and stumbling reason to be replaced by that divine knowledge which to the Greek, the rational man, is foolishness, and the laborious pleasure-seeking of the bound mentality to lose itself in the spontaneity of the divine Ananda; "for of such is the kingdom of heaven." The Paramhansa, the liberated man, is in his soul bālavat, even as if a child.
The first laws of working of the Gods. ↩
36.07 - An Introduction To The Vedas, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Integral Yoga
Katha, 11.1.10. (Whatever is there in the inner world is to be found here as well). In ancient times, not only in India, but in all countries of the world, symbolism was in vogue. We cannot read through those symbols. That is why we consider them black magic or rustic customs of the uncivilised. We can partly appreciate the political and artistic genius of Egypt. So at times we consider it equal or superior to ours. But we are unable to grasp her spiritual genius. Hence we do not hesitate to relegate it to the level of barbarism. We have hardly any spiritual realisation. What we understand is at best morality. We highly admire the art and literature of Greece. But in respect of Greek spirituality our knowledge is confined to Socrates. In the earlier period of Greek civilisation there was a current of deep spiritual culture, and what they used to call the Mysteries were only mysteries of spiritual yogic discipline. We fail to understand that the water-worship of Thales and the fire-worship of Heraclitus were not merely different aspects of Nature-worship. We do not like to believe that these terms "water" and "fire" can ever be the symbols of spiritual truths. We study the philosophies of Pythagoras and Plato. But we do not delve into the spiritual culture or esoteric aspect of which their philosophies are but outer expressions. Behind the mythologies of China, Japan, old-world America and Australia there lies a science of spiritual discipline which may not be recognised by the scientists, but those practising spirituality will not find it difficult to discover it.
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4.0 - NOTES TO ZARATHUSTRA, #Twilight of the Idols, #Friedrich Nietzsche, #Philosophy
predecessors: Heraclitus, Empedocles, Spinoza, Goethe.
58
7 - Yoga of Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
by the Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, in the words,
panta reei, everything flows on. Here 3 often a certain
BOOK VI. - Of Varros threefold division of theology, and of the inability of the gods to contri bute anything to the happiness of the future life, #City of God, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
Let us see, now, what he says concerning the second kind. "The second kind which I have explained," he says, "is that concerning which philosophers have left many books, in which they treat such questions as these: what gods there are, where they are, of what kind and character they are, since what time they have existed, or if they have existed from eternity; whether they are of fire, as Heraclitus believes; or of number, as Pythagoras; or of atoms, as Epicurus says; and other such things, which men's ears can more easily hear inside the walls of a school than outside in the Forum." He finds fault with nothing in this kind of theology which they call physical, and which belongs to philosophers, except that he has related their controversies among themselves, through which there has arisen a multitude of dissentient sects. Nevertheless he has removed this kind from the Forum, that is, from the populace, but he has shut it up in schools. But that first kind, most false and most base, he has not removed from the citizens. Oh, the religious ears of the people, and among them even those of the Romans, that are not able to bear what the philosophers dispute concerning the gods! But when the poets sing and stage-players act such things as are derogatory to the dignity and the nature of the immortals, such as may befall not a man merely, but the most contemptible man, they not only bear, but willingly listen to. Nor is this all, but they even consider that these things please the gods, and that they are propitiated by them.
But some one may say, Let us distinguish these two kinds of theology, the mythical and the physical,that is, the fabulous and the natural,from this civil kind about which we are now speaking. Anticipating this, he himself has distinguished them. Let us see now how he explains the civil theology itself. I see, indeed, why it should be distinguished as fabulous, even because it is false, because it is base, because it is unworthy. But to wish to distinguish the natural from the civil, what else is that but to confess that the civil itself is false? For if that be natural, what fault has it that it should be excluded? And if this which is called civil be not[Pg 240] natural, what merit has it that it should be admitted? This, in truth, is the cause why he wrote first concerning human things, and afterwards concerning divine things; since in divine things he did not follow nature, but the institution of men. Let us look at this civil theology of his. "The third kind," says he, "is that which citizens in cities, and especially the priests, ought to know and to administer. From it is to be known what god each one may suitably worship, what sacred rites and sacrifices each one may suitably perform." Let us still attend to what follows. "The first theology," he says, "is especially adapted to the theatre, the second to the world, the third to the city." Who does not see to which he gives the palm? Certainly to the second, which he said above is that of the philosophers. For he testifies that this pertains to the world, than which they think there is nothing better. But those two theologies, the first and the third,to wit, those of the theatre and of the city,has he distinguished them or united them? For although we see that the city is in the world, we do not see that it follows that any things belonging to the city pertain to the world. For it is possible that such things may be worshipped and believed in the city, according to false opinions, as have no existence either in the world or out of it. But where is the theatre but in the city? Who instituted the theatre but the state? For what purpose did it constitute it but for scenic plays? And to what class of things do scenic plays belong but to those divine things concerning which these books of Varro's are written with so much ability?
BOOK XIII. - That death is penal, and had its origin in Adam's sin, #City of God, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
[536] The former opinion was held by Democritus and his disciple Epicurus; the latter by Heraclitus, who supposed that "God amused Himself" by thus renewing worlds.
[537] The Alexandrian Neo-Platonists endeavoured in this way to escape from the obvious meaning of the Timus.
ENNEAD 02.01 - Of the Heaven., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03, #Plotinus, #Christianity
REJECTION OF THE OPINION OF Heraclitus.
2. An admission that the heaven and the stars are perpetual in their individuality, while sublunary things are perpetual only in their form, would demand demonstration that a corporeal being can preserve its individuality as well as its form, even though the nature of bodies were a continual fluctuation. Such is the nature that the physical philosophers,202 and even Plato himself, attribute not only to sublunar bodies, but even to celestial ones. "For," asks (Plato203), "how could corporeal and visible objects subsist ever immutable and identical with themselves?" (Plato) therefore admits the opinion of Heraclitus that "the sun itself is in a state of perpetual becoming (or, growth)."204
ARISTOTLE HAS TO DEPEND ON QUINTESSENCE.
ENNEAD 03.01 - Concerning Fate., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01, #Plotinus, #Christianity
There are others (such as Heraclitus102), who, seeking the (supreme) principle of the universe, refer everything to it; saying that this principle penetrates, moves,89 and produces everything. This they call Fate, and the Supreme Cause. From it they derive everything; its motions are said to give rise not only to the things that are occurring, but even our thought. That is how the members of an animal do not move themselves, but receive the stimulus from the "governing principle" within them.
THE ASTROLOGERS MAKE COSMIC DEDUCTIONS FROM PROGNOSTICATION.
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RESTATEMENT OF Heraclitus'S POSITION.
4. But might ( Heraclitus) suppose that a single Soul interpenetrating the universe produces everything, and by supplying the universe with motion supplies it simultaneously to all its constituent beings, so that from this primary cause, would necessarily flow all secondary causes, whose sequence and connection would constitute Fate? Similarly, in a plant, for instance, the plant's fate might be constituted by the ("governing") principle which, from the root, administers its other parts, and which organizes into a single system their "actions" and "reactions."104
ENNEAD 03.02 - Of Providence., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04, #Plotinus, #Christianity
4. We should not be surprised at water extinguishing fire, or at fire destroying some other element. Even this element was introduced to existence by some other element, and it is not surprising that it should be destroyed, since it did not produce itself, and was introduced to existence only by the destruction of some other element (as thought Heraclitus and the Stoics35). Besides, the extinguished fire is replaced by another active fire. In the incorporeal heaven, everything is permanent; in the visible heaven, the totality, as well as the more important and the most essential parts, are eternal. The souls, on passing through different bodies, (by virtue of their disposition36), themselves change on assuming some particular form; but, when they can do so, they stand outside of generation, remaining united to the universal Soul. The bodies are alive by their form, and by the whole that each of them constitutes (by its union with a soul), since they are animals, and since they nourish themselves; for in the sense-world life is mobile, but in the intelligible world it is immobile. Immobility necessarily begat movement, self-contained life was compelled to produce other life, and calm being naturally exhaled vibrating spirit.
OPPOSITION AMONG ANIMALS.
ENNEAD 03.07 - Of Time and Eternity., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03, #Plotinus, #Christianity
201 As thought Heraclitus, Diog. Laert. ix. 8; Plato, Timaeus, p. 31; Cary, 11; Arist. Heaven, 1, 8, 9.
202 Such as Heraclitus.
203 In the Cratylus, p. 402; Cary, 41.
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221 As thought Heraclitus and the Stoics, who thought that the stars fed themselves from the exhalations of the earth and the waters; see Seneca, Nat. Quest. vi. 16.
222 See ii. 1.5.
ENNEAD 04.02 - How the Soul Mediates Between Indivisible and Divisible Essence., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01, #Plotinus, #Christianity
222 As said Heraclitus, Plutarch, Banquet, iv. 4.
223 See iv. 7.10.
ENNEAD 04.03 - Psychological Questions., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 02, #Plotinus, #Christianity
Doubtless we will have to acknowledge that there are affections which pass from the body into the soul; but there are also affections which belong exclusively to the soul, because the soul is a real being, with characteristic nature and activities. In this case, the soul must have desires, and recall them, remembering that they have, or have not been satisfied; because, by her nature, she does not form part of the things which are (as Heraclitus said) in a perpetual flow. Otherwise, we could not attri bute to the soul coenes thesia (or, common feeling), conscience, reflection, or the intuition of herself. If she did not possess them by her nature, she would not acquire them by union with the body. Doubtless there are activities which the soul cannot carry out without the assistance of the organs; but she herself possesses the faculties (or "powers") from which these activities are outgrowths. Besides, she, by herself, possesses other faculties, whose operations are derived from her alone. Among these is memory, whose exercise is only hindered by the body. Indeed, when the soul unites with the body, she forgets; when she separates from the body, and purifies herself, she often recovers memory. Since the soul possesses memory when she is alone, the body, with its changeable nature, that is ever subject to a perpetual flow, is a cause of forgetfulness, and not of memory; the body therefore is, for the soul, the stream of Le the (or forgetfulness). To the soul alone, therefore, belongs memory.
433
ENNEAD 04.07 - Of the Immortality of the Soul: Polemic Against Materialism., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01, #Plotinus, #Christianity
(e.) (No body could subsist without the power of the universal soul.) Besides no body could subsist without the power of the universal Soul (from Numenius46). Every body, indeed, is in a perpetual flow and movement (as thought Heraclitus, in Plato, Cratylus47), and the world would soon perish if it contained nothing but bodies, even if some one of them were to be called soul; for such a soul, being composed of the same matter as the other bodies, would undergo the same fate that they do; or rather, there would not even be any body, everything would remain in the condition of shapeless matter, since there would exist no principle to fashion it. Why, there would not even be any matter, and the universe would be annihilated to nothingness, if the care of keeping its parts united were entrusted to some body which would have nothing but the name of soul, as for instance, to air, or a breath without cohesion,48 which could not be one, by itself. As all bodies are divisible, if the universe depended on a body, it would be deprived of intelligence and given up to chance. How, indeed, could there be any order in a spirit which itself would need to receive order from a soul? How could this spirit contain reason and intelligence? On the hypothesis of the existence of the soul, all these elements serve to constitute the body of the world, and of every animal,61 because all different bodies together work for the end of all; but without the soul, there is no order, and even nothing exists any more.
IF THE SOUL IS NOT SIMPLE MATTER, SHE MUST BE A SUBSTANTIAL FORM.
4. (f) (If the soul is anything but simple matter, she must be constituted by a substantial form.) Those who claim that the soul is a body are, by the very force of the truth, forced to recognize the existence, before and above them, of a form proper to the soul; for they acknowledge the existence of an intelligent spirit, and an intellectual fire (as do the Stoics, following in the footsteps of Heraclitus, Stobaeus49). According to them, it seems that, without spirit or fire, there cannot be any superior nature in the order of beings, and that the soul needs a location where she may be built up. On the contrary, it is bodies alone that need to be built up on something, and indeed, they are founded on the powers of the soul. If really we do believe that the soul and life are no more than a spirit, why add the qualification "of a certain characteristic,"50 a meaningless term employed when forced to admit an active nature superior to that of bodies. As there are thousands of inanimate spirits, not every spirit is a soul. If only that spirit is a soul which possesses that "special characteristic," this "special characteristic" and this "manner of being" will either be something real, or will be nothing. If they are nothing, there will be nothing real but spirit, and this alleged "manner of being" is nothing more than a word. In that system, therefore, nothing but matter really exists. God, the soul, and all other things are no more than a word; the body alone really subsists. If, on the contrary, that "manner of being" is something real, if it is anything else than substrate or62 matter, if it resides in matter without being material or composed of matter, it must then be a nature different from the body, namely, a reason (by a pun).51
THE BODY EXERTS A UNIFORM ACTION, WHILE THE SOUL EXERTS A VARIED ONE.
ENNEAD 04.08 - Of the Descent of the Soul Into the Body., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01, #Plotinus, #Christianity
5. Without any inherent contradiction it may therefore be asserted either,174 that the souls are sowed into generation, that they descend here below for the perfection of the universe, or that they are shut up in a cavern as the result of a divine punishment, that their fall is simultaneously an effect of their will and of necessityas necessity does not exclude voluntarinessand that they are in evil so long as they are incarnate in bodies. Again, as Empedocles says, they may have withdrawn from the divinity, and have lost their way, and have committed some fault that they are expiating; or, as says Heraclitus, that rest consists in flight (from heaven, and descent here below), and that the descent of souls is neither entirely voluntary, nor involuntary. Indeed, no being ever falls voluntarily; but as it is by his own motion that he descends to lower things, and reaches a less happy condition, it may be said that he bears the punishment of his128 conduct. Besides, as it is by an eternal law of nature that this being acts and suffers in that manner, we may, without contradiction or violence to the truth, assert that the being who descends from his rank to assist some lower thing is sent by the divinity.175 In spite of any number of intermediate parts (which separate) a principle from its lower part, the latter may still be ascribed to the former.176
THE TWO POSSIBLE FAULTS OF THE SOUL.
ENNEAD 05.01 - The Three Principal Hypostases, or Forms of Existence., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01, #Plotinus, #Christianity
Heraclitus also taught the eternal and intelligible One; for Heraclitus holds that bodies are ceaselessly "becoming" (that is, developing), and that they are in a perpetual state of flux.250
EMPEDOCLES TAUGHT THE SAME THING.
ENNEAD 06.03 - Plotinos Own Sense-Categories., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03, #Plotinus, #Christianity
Why then do we not also classify the beautiful among the relatives? Because beauty is such by itself,953 because it constitutes a quality, while "more beautiful" is a relative. Nevertheless the thing which is called beautiful would sometimes appear ugly, if it were compared to some other, as, for instance, if we were to contrast the beauty of men with that of the gods; hence the expression (of Heraclitus's384): "The most beautiful of monkeys would be ugly if compared with an animal of a different kind." When beauty is predicated of something, it is considered in itself; it might perhaps be called more beautiful or more ugly if it were compared to another. Hence it results that, in the genus of which we are treating, an object is in itself great because of the presence of greatness, but not in respect to some other. Otherwise, we would be obliged to deny that a thing was beautiful because of the existence of some more beautiful one. Neither therefore must we deny that a thing is great because there is only one greater than it; for "greater" could not exist without "great," any more than "more beautiful" without "beautiful."
QUANTITY ADMITS OF CONTRARIES (POLEMIC AGAINST ARISTOTLE).385
ENNEAD 06.05 - The One and Identical Being is Everywhere Present In Its Entirety.345, #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04, #Plotinus, #Christianity
The first treatment of matter occurs in the first Ennead, and it may be described as thoroughly Numenian, being treated in conjunction with the subject1273 of evil. First, we have the expression of the Supreme hovering over Being.372 Then we have the soul double,373 reminding us of Numenius's view of the double Second Divinity374 and the double soul.375 Then we have positive evil occurring in the absence of good.376 Plotinos377 opposes the Stoic denial of evil, for he says, "if this were all," there were no evil. We find a threefold division of the universe without the Stoic term hypostasis, which occurs in the treatment of the same topic elsewhere.378 Similar to Numenius is the King of all,379 the blissful life of the divinities around him,380 and the division of the universe into three.381 Plotinos382 acknowledges evil things in the world, something denied by the Stoics,383 but taught by Numenius, as is also original, primary existence of evil, in itself. Evil is here said to be a hypostasis in itself, and imparts evil qualities to other things. It is an image of being, and a genuine nature of evil. Plotinos describes384 matter as flowing eternally, which reminds us unmistakably of Numenius's image385 of matter as a swiftly flowing stream, unlimited and infinite in depth, breadth, and length. Evil inheres in the material part of the body,386 and is seen as actual, positive, darkness, which is Numenian, as far as it means a definite principle.387 Plotinos also388 insists on the ineradicability of evil, in almost the same terms as Numenius,389 who calls on Heraclitus and Homer as supporters. Plotinos390 as reason for this assigns the fact that the world is a mixture, which is the very proof advanced by Numenius in 12. Plotinos, moreover,391 defines matter as that which remains after all qualities are abstracted; this is thoroughly Numenian.392
In the fourth book of the Second Ennead the treatment of matter is original, and is based on comparative studies. Evil has disappeared from the horizon; and the long treatment of the controversy with the Gnostics393 is devoted to explaining away evil as misunderstood1274 good. Although he begins by finding fault with Stoic materialism,394 he asserts two matters, the intelligible and the physical. Intelligible matter395 is eternal, and possesses essence. Plotinos goes on396 to argue for the necessity of an intelligible, as well as a physical substrate (hypokeimenon). In the next paragraph397 Plotinos seems to undertake a historical polemic, against three traditional teachers (Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and Democritus) under whose names he was surely finding fault with their disciples: the Stoics, Numenius, and possibly such thinkers as Lucretius. Empedocles is held responsible for the view that elements are material, evidently a Stoical view. Anaxagoras is held responsible for three views, which are distinctly Numenian: that the world is a mixture,398 that it is all in all,399 and that it is infinite.400 We might, in passing, notice another Plotinian contradiction in here condemning the world as mixture, approved in the former passage.401 As to the atomism of Democritus, it is not clear with which contemporaries he was finding fault. Intelligible matter reappears402 where we also find again the idea of doubleness of everything. As to the terms used by the way, we find the Stoic categories of Otherness or Variety403 and Motion; the conceptual seminal logoi, and the "Koin ousia" of matter; but in his psychology he uses "logos" and "nosis," instead of "nous" and "phronesis," which are found in the Escorial section, and which are more Stoical. We also find the Aristotelian category of energy, or potentiality.
--
For details, the reader is referred to Zeller's fuller account of these pre-Platonic elements.471 But we may summarize as follows: the physical elements to which the Hylicists had in turn attri buted finality Plato united into Pythagorean matter, which remained as an element of Dualism. The world of nature became the becoming of Heraclitus. Above that he placed the Being of Parmenides, in which the concepts of Socrates found place as ideas. These he identified with the numbers and harmonies of Pythagoras, and united them in an Eleatic unity of many, as an intelligible world, or reason, which he owed to Anaxagoras. The chief idea, that of the Good, was Megaro-Socratic. His cosmology was that of Timaeus. His psychology was based on Anaxagoras, as mind; on Pythagoras, as immortal. His ethics are Socratic, his politics are Pythagorean. Who therefore would flout Plato, has all earlier Greek philosophy to combat; and whoever recognizes the achievements of the Hellenic mind will find something to praise in Plato. When, therefore, we are studying Platonism, we are only studying a blending of the rays of Greece, and we are chiefly interested in Greece as one of the latest, clearest, and most kindred expressions of human thought.
1290 If however we should seek some one special Platonic element, it would be that genuineness of reflection, that sincerity of thought, that makes of his dialogues no cut and dried literary figments, but soul-tragedies, with living, breathing, interest and emotion. Plato thus practised his doctrine of the double self,472 the higher and the lower selves, of which the higher might be described as "superior to oneself." In his later period, that of the Laws, he applied this double psychology to cosmology, thereby producing doubleness in the world-Soul: besides the good one, appears the evil one, which introduces even into heaven things that are not good.
--
This abstract method, still familiarly used by geometry, reappeared among the School-men, notably in Thomas Aquinas. Later it persisted with Spinoza and Descartes. However, rising experimentalism has gradually terminated it, its last form appearing in Kant and Hegel. Kant's "Ding in sich," reached after abstracting all qualities, is only a re-statement of Numenius and Plotinos's "subject," or, definition of matter; and Hegel's dialectic, beginning with Being and Not-being, more definitely proclaimed by Plotinos, goes as far back as the Eleatics and Heraclitus, not to mention Plato. However, Kant and Hegel are the great masters of modern thought; and although at one time the rising tide of materialism and cruder forms of evolution threatened to obscure it, Karl Pearson's "Grammar of Science," generous as it is in invective against Kant and Hegel, in modern terms clinches Berkeley's and Kant's demonstration of the reality of the super-sensual, thus vindicating Plotinos, and, before him, Numenius.
1295 It must not be supposed that in thus tracing the springs of our modern thought we necessarily approve of all the thought of Plotinos, Numenius or Plato. On the contrary, they were far more likely to have committed logical errors than we are, because they were hypnotized by the glamor of the terms they used, which to us are mere laboratory tools. The best way to prove this will be to appraise at its logical value for us Plotinos's discussion of Matter, elsewhere studied in its value for us.
--
Cause, is Supreme, of Heraclitus, iii. 1.2 (3-88).
Cause, of affections, though corporeal, iii. 6.4 (26-356).
--
Contraries passing into each other, Heraclitus, iv. 8.1 (6-119).
Contraries teach appreciation, iv. 8.7 (6-131).
--
Heaven, according to Heraclitus, opposed, ii. 1.2 (40-815).
Heaven, existence of, iv. 4.45 (28-512).
--
Rest of Heraclitus, description of ecstatic goal, vi. 9.8 (9-165); vi. 9.11 (9-170).
Resultance of causes is anything, ii. 3.14 (52-1181).
ENNEAD 06.09 - Of the Good and the One., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01, #Plotinus, #Christianity
As the One does not contain any difference, He is always present; and we are ever present to Him as soon as we contain no more difference. It is not He who is aspiring to us, or who is moving around us; on the contrary, it is we who are aspiring to Him. Though we always move around Him, we do not always keep our glance fixed on Him. We resemble a chorus which always surrounds its leader, but (the members of) which do not always sing in time because they allow their attention to be distracted to some exterior object; while, if they turned towards the leader, they would sing well, and really be with him. Likewise, we always turn around the One, even when we detach ourselves from Him, and cease knowing Him. Our glance is not always fixed on the One; but when we contemplate Him, we attain the purpose of our desires, and enjoy the rest taught by Heraclitus.204 Then we disagree no more, and really form a divine choric ballet around Him.
FOLLOWING NUMENIUS, PLOTINOS DESCRIBES THE SUPREME AS GIVER.
The Dwellings of the Philosophers, #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
Miletis, Heraclitus of Ephesus, Anaxagoras of Clazomene, etc., in a word, by all the
philosophers and Greek savants, as the Papyrus of Leyden testifies.
the Eternal Wisdom, #unset, #Anonymous, #Various
1) All wisdom is one: to understand the spirit that rules all by all. ~ Heraclitus
2) Being but one, she is capable of all; immutable in herself, she renews all things; she diffuses herself among the nations in saintly souls. ~ The Book of Wisdom
--
5) All men participate in the possibility of self-knowledge. ~ Heraclitus
6) Let the man in whom there is intelligence... know himself. ~ Hermes
--
29) Try, but thou shalt not find the frontiers of the soul even if thou scourest all its ways; so profound is the extension of its reasoning being. ~ Heraclitus
Know Thyself View Similar The Methods of Vedantic Knowledge
--
13) Contraries harmonise with each other; the finest harmony springs from things that are unlike. ~ Heraclitus
14) Whoever would enter into the mysteries of Nature must incessantly explore the opposite extremes of things and discover the point where they unite. ~ Giordano Bruno
--
3) Human opinions are playthings. ~ Heraclitus 88
4) Those, on the contrary, who contemplate the immutable essence of things, have knowledge and not opinions. ~ Plato: Republic
--
4)All is movement and nothing is fixed; we cannot cross over the same stream twice. ~ Heraclitus
5) Everything that is composite is soon destroyed and, like the lightning in heaven, does not last for long ~ Lalita-Vistara
--
5) Eye and ear are poor witnesses for man, if his inner life has not been made fine. ~ Heraclitus
6) Thence comes it that the saint occupies himself with his inner being and not with the objects of his eyes. ~ Lao- Tse
--
25) For the waking there is only one common world...During sleepeach turns towards his own particular world. ~ Heraclitus
26) My heart within instructs me also in the night seasons. ~ Psalms. XVI.7
--
22) Life and death, waking and sleep, youth and age are one and the same thing, for one changes .into the other, that into this. ~ Heraclitus
23) All that is born, is corrupted to be born again. ~ Hermes
--
27) This universal order is the same for everything; neither God nor man has created it; it has always been, it is and will be always an eternally living Fire which kindles itself periodically and is again extinguished. ~ Heraclitus
28) The work of eternity is the world, which has not been produced once for all but is always produced by eternity. Thus it will never perish, for eternity is imperishable, and nothing is lost in the world because the world is enveloped in eternity. ~ Hermes
The Immortal, #Labyrinths, #Jorge Luis Borges, #Poetry
There is nothing very remarkable about being immortal; with the exception of mankind, all creatures are immortal, for they know nothing of death. What is divine, terrible, and incomprehensible is to know oneself immortal. I have noticed that in spite of religion, the conviction as to one's own immortality is extraordinarily rare. Jews, Christians, and Muslims all profess belief in immortality, but the veneration paid to the first century of life is proof that they truly believe only in those hundred years, for they destine all the rest, throughout eternity, to rewarding or punishing what one did when alive. In my view, the Wheel conceived by certain religions in Hindustan is much more plausible; on that Wheel, which has neither end nor beginning, each life is the effect of the previous life and engenderer of the next, yet no one life determines the whole.... Taught by centuries of living, the republic of immortal men had achieved a perfection of tolerance, almost of disdain. They knew that over an infinitely long span of time, all things happen to all men. As reward for his past and future virtues, every man merited every kindness - yet also every betrayal, as reward for his past and future iniquities. Much as the way in games of chance, heads and tails tend to even out, so cleverness and dullness cancel and correct each other. Perhaps the rude poem of El Cid is the counterweight demanded by a single epithet of the Eclogues or a maxim from Heraclitus. The most fleeting thought obeys an invisible plan, and may crown, or inaugurate, a secret design. I know of men who have done evil in order that good may come of it in future centuries, or may already have come of it in centuries past.... Viewed in that way, all our acts are just, though also unimportant. There are no spiritual or intellectual merits. Homer composed the Odyssey; given infinite time, with infinite circumstances and changes, it is impossible that the Odyssey should not be composed at least once. No one is someone; a single immortal man is all men. Like Cornelius Agrippa, I am god, hero, philosopher, demon, and world - which is a long-winded way of saying that Aim not.
The notion of the world as a system of exact compensations had an enormous influence on the Immortals. In the first place, it made them immune to pity. I have mentioned the ancient quarries that dotted the countryside on the far bank of the stream; a man fell into the deepest of those pits; he could not be hurt, could not die, and yet he burned with thirst; seventy years passed before he was thrown a rope. Nor was he much interested in his own fate. His body was a submissive domestic animal; all the charity it required each month was a few hours' sleep, a little water, and a scrap of meat. But let no one imagine that we were mere ascetics. There is no more complex pleasure than thought, and it was to thought that we delivered ourselves over. From time to time, some extraordinary stimulus might bring us back to the physical world - for example, on that dawn, the ancient elemental pleasure of the rain. But those lapses were extremely rare; all Immortals were capable of perfect quietude. I recall one whom I never saw standing - a bird had made its nest on his breast.
--- Overview of noun heraclitus
The noun heraclitus has 1 sense (no senses from tagged texts)
1. Heraclitus ::: (a presocratic Greek philosopher who said that fire is the origin of all things and that permanence is an illusion as all things are in perpetual flux (circa 500 BC))
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun heraclitus
1 sense of heraclitus
Sense 1
Heraclitus
INSTANCE OF=> philosopher
=> scholar, scholarly person, bookman, student
=> intellectual, intellect
=> person, individual, someone, somebody, mortal, soul
=> organism, being
=> living thing, animate thing
=> whole, unit
=> object, physical object
=> physical entity
=> entity
=> causal agent, cause, causal agency
=> physical entity
=> entity
--- Hyponyms of noun heraclitus
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun heraclitus
1 sense of heraclitus
Sense 1
Heraclitus
INSTANCE OF=> philosopher
--- Coordinate Terms (sisters) of noun heraclitus
1 sense of heraclitus
Sense 1
Heraclitus
-> philosopher
=> nativist
=> Cynic
=> eclectic, eclecticist
=> empiricist
=> epistemologist
=> esthetician, aesthetician
=> ethicist, ethician
=> existentialist, existentialist philosopher, existential philosopher
=> gymnosophist
=> libertarian
=> mechanist
=> moralist
=> naturalist
=> necessitarian
=> nominalist
=> pluralist
=> pre-Socratic
=> realist
=> Scholastic
=> Sophist
=> Stoic
=> transcendentalist
=> yogi
HAS INSTANCE=> Abelard, Peter Abelard, Pierre Abelard
HAS INSTANCE=> Anaxagoras
HAS INSTANCE=> Anaximander
HAS INSTANCE=> Anaximenes
HAS INSTANCE=> Arendt, Hannah Arendt
HAS INSTANCE=> Aristotle
HAS INSTANCE=> Averroes, ibn-Roshd, Abul-Walid Mohammed ibn-Ahmad Ibn-Mohammed ibn-Roshd
HAS INSTANCE=> Avicenna, ibn-Sina, Abu Ali al-Husain ibn Abdallah ibn Sina
HAS INSTANCE=> Bacon, Francis Bacon, Sir Francis Bacon, Baron Verulam, 1st Baron Verulam, Viscount St. Albans
HAS INSTANCE=> Bentham, Jeremy Bentham
HAS INSTANCE=> Bergson, Henri Bergson, Henri Louis Bergson
HAS INSTANCE=> Berkeley, Bishop Berkeley, George Berkeley
HAS INSTANCE=> Boethius, Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
HAS INSTANCE=> Bruno, Giordano Bruno
HAS INSTANCE=> Buber, Martin Buber
HAS INSTANCE=> Cassirer, Ernst Cassirer
HAS INSTANCE=> Cleanthes
HAS INSTANCE=> Comte, Auguste Comte, Isidore Auguste Marie Francois Comte
HAS INSTANCE=> Condorcet, Marquis de Condorcet, Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat
HAS INSTANCE=> Confucius, Kongfuze, K'ung Futzu, Kong the Master
HAS INSTANCE=> Democritus
HAS INSTANCE=> Derrida, Jacques Derrida
HAS INSTANCE=> Descartes, Rene Descartes
HAS INSTANCE=> Dewey, John Dewey
HAS INSTANCE=> Diderot, Denis Diderot
HAS INSTANCE=> Diogenes
HAS INSTANCE=> Empedocles
HAS INSTANCE=> Epictetus
HAS INSTANCE=> Epicurus
HAS INSTANCE=> Haeckel, Ernst Heinrich Haeckel
HAS INSTANCE=> Hartley, David Hartley
HAS INSTANCE=> Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
HAS INSTANCE=> Heraclitus
HAS INSTANCE=> Herbart, Johann Friedrich Herbart
HAS INSTANCE=> Herder, Johann Gottfried von Herder
HAS INSTANCE=> Hobbes, Thomas Hobbes
HAS INSTANCE=> Hume, David Hume
HAS INSTANCE=> Husserl, Edmund Husserl
HAS INSTANCE=> Hypatia
HAS INSTANCE=> James, William James
HAS INSTANCE=> Kant, Immanuel Kant
HAS INSTANCE=> Kierkegaard, Soren Kierkegaard, Soren Aabye Kierkegaard
HAS INSTANCE=> Lao-tzu, Lao-tse, Lao-zi
HAS INSTANCE=> Leibniz, Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz
HAS INSTANCE=> Locke, John Locke
HAS INSTANCE=> Lucretius, Titus Lucretius Carus
HAS INSTANCE=> Lully, Raymond Lully, Ramon Lully
HAS INSTANCE=> Mach, Ernst Mach
HAS INSTANCE=> Machiavelli, Niccolo Machiavelli
HAS INSTANCE=> Maimonides, Moses Maimonides, Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon
HAS INSTANCE=> Malebranche, Nicolas de Malebranche
HAS INSTANCE=> Marcuse, Herbert Marcuse
HAS INSTANCE=> Marx, Karl Marx
HAS INSTANCE=> Mead, George Herbert Mead
HAS INSTANCE=> Mill, John Mill, John Stuart Mill
HAS INSTANCE=> Mill, James Mill
HAS INSTANCE=> Montesquieu, Baron de la Brede et de Montesquieu, Charles Louis de Secondat
HAS INSTANCE=> Moore, G. E. Moore, George Edward Moore
HAS INSTANCE=> Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
HAS INSTANCE=> Occam, William of Occam, Ockham, William of Ockham
HAS INSTANCE=> Origen
HAS INSTANCE=> Ortega y Gasset, Jose Ortega y Gasset
HAS INSTANCE=> Parmenides
HAS INSTANCE=> Pascal, Blaise Pascal
HAS INSTANCE=> Peirce, Charles Peirce, Charles Sanders Peirce
HAS INSTANCE=> Perry, Ralph Barton Perry
HAS INSTANCE=> Plato
HAS INSTANCE=> Plotinus
=> Popper, Karl Popper, Sir Karl Raimund Popper
HAS INSTANCE=> Pythagoras
HAS INSTANCE=> Quine, W. V. Quine, Willard Van Orman Quine
HAS INSTANCE=> Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Sir Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
HAS INSTANCE=> Reid, Thomas Reid
HAS INSTANCE=> Rousseau, Jean-Jacques Rousseau
HAS INSTANCE=> Russell, Bertrand Russell, Bertrand Arthur William Russell, Earl Russell
HAS INSTANCE=> Schopenhauer, Arthur Schopenhauer
HAS INSTANCE=> Schweitzer, Albert Schweitzer
HAS INSTANCE=> Seneca, Lucius Annaeus Seneca
HAS INSTANCE=> Socrates
HAS INSTANCE=> Spencer, Herbert Spencer
HAS INSTANCE=> Spengler, Oswald Spengler
HAS INSTANCE=> Spinoza, de Spinoza, Baruch de Spinoza, Benedict de Spinoza
HAS INSTANCE=> Steiner, Rudolf Steiner
HAS INSTANCE=> Stewart, Dugald Stewart
HAS INSTANCE=> Tagore, Rabindranath Tagore, Sir Rabindranath Tagore
HAS INSTANCE=> Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
HAS INSTANCE=> Thales, Thales of Miletus
HAS INSTANCE=> Theophrastus
HAS INSTANCE=> Weil, Simone Weil
HAS INSTANCE=> Whitehead, Alfred North Whitehead
HAS INSTANCE=> Williams, Sir Bernard Williams, Bernard Arthur Owen Williams
HAS INSTANCE=> Wittgenstein, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Ludwig Josef Johan Wittgenstein
HAS INSTANCE=> Xenophanes
HAS INSTANCE=> Zeno, Zeno of Citium
HAS INSTANCE=> Zeno, Zeno of Elea
--- Grep of noun heraclitus
heraclitus
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