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.
HeraclitusRead
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
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the ever-changing nature of reality and warns against believing in a false permanence.
Heraclitus highlights the concept of 'Becoming,' stressing that everything is in a constant state of flux and transformation. He suggests that our desire to label and categorize reality leads to the illusion that things have a fixed essence, while in fact, change is the only constant in nature, much like a river that is never the same from one moment to the next.
Themes
ChangeBecomingPhilosophyRealityIllusion
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture on existential philosophy, one might use this quote to discuss the nature of reality.
More from Heraclitus
All quotes →Thinking is a sacred disease and sight is deceptive.
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Things of which there is sight, hearing, apprehension, these I prefer.
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Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.
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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."
HeraclitusRead
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.
HeraclitusRead
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