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
What sense or thought do they have? They follow the popular singers, and they take the crowd as their teacher.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote critiques those who blindly follow popular figures without critical thought.
Heraclitus questions the wisdom of individuals who do not think for themselves and instead rely on popular singers and the crowd for guidance. This suggests an admonition against conformism and highlights the importance of independent thought in the pursuit of knowledge and understanding.
Themes
ConformityWisdomIndependent ThoughtCrowd MentalityCriticism
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech about critical thinking, one might use this quote to emphasize the need for independent thoughts over blind following.
More from Heraclitus
All quotes βThinking is a sacred disease and sight is deceptive.
HeraclitusRead
Things of which there is sight, hearing, apprehension, these I prefer.
HeraclitusRead
Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.
HeraclitusRead
For when is death not within our selves? And as Heracleitus says: βLiving 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
Similar quotes
But somewhere, beyond Space and Time, is wetter water, slimier slime! And there (they trust) there swimmeth one who swam ere rivers were begun, immense of fishy form and mind, squamous omnipotent, and kind.
Rupert BrookeRead
If you give people nothingness, they can ponder what can be achieved from that nothingness.
Tadao AndoRead
No one imagines that a symphony is supposed to improve as it goes along, or that the whole object of playing is to reach the finale. The point of music is discovered in every moment of playing and listening to it. It is the same, I feel, with the greater part of our lives, and if we are unduly absorbed in improving them we may forget altogether to live them.
Alan WattsRead
Some men get the world, some men get ex-hookers and a trip to Arizona. You're in with the former, but my God I don't envy the blood on your conscience.
James EllroyRead
Human rights will be a powerful force for the transformation of reality when they are not simply understood as externally defined norms of behavior but are lived as the spontaneous manifestation of internalized values.
Daisaku IkedaRead
It is seldom, that liberty of any kind is lost all at once. Slavery has so frightful an aspect to men accustomed to freedom, that it must steal upon them by degrees, and must disguise itself in a thousand shapes, in order to be received.
David HumeRead