|
|
||
 |
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||
|
CLASSICAL ESSAY |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
|
by Heraclitus
1. Not on my authority, but on that of truth, it is wise for you to accept the fact that all things are one. 2. This truth, though it always exists, men do not understand, as well before they hear it as when they hear it for the first time. For although all things happen in accordance with this truth, men seem unskilled indeed when they make trial of words and matters such as I am setting forth, in my effort to discriminate each thing according to its nature, and to tell what its state is. But other men fail to notice what they do when awake, in the same manner that they forget what they do when asleep. 4. Eyes and ears are bad witnesses for men, since their souls lack understanding. 7. If you do not hope, you will not find that which is not hoped for; since it is difficult to discover and impossible to attain. 15. Eyes are more exact witnesses than ears. 16. Much learning does not teach one to have understanding; else it would have taught Hesiod, and Pythagoras, and again Xenophanes, and Hecataeus. 17. Pythagoras, son of Mnesarchus, prosecuted investigations more than any other man, and [selecting these treatises] he made a wisdom of his own -- much learning and bad art. 20. This order, the same for all things, no one of gods or men has made, but it always was, and is, and ever shall be, an everliving fire, kindling according to fixed measure, and extinguishing according to fixed measure. 21. The transformations of fire are, first of all, sea; and of the sea one half is earth, and the other half is lightning flash. 22. All things are exchanged for fire, and fire for all things; as ware are exchanged for gold, and gold for wares. 25. Fire lives in the death of earth, and air lives in the death of fire; water lives in the death of air, and earth in that of water. 29. The sun will not overstep his bounds; if he does, the Erinnyes, allies of justice, will find him out. 32. The sun is new every day. 35. Hesiod is the teacher of most men; they suppose that his knowledge was very extensive, when in fact he did not know night and day, for they are one. 36. God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, satiety and hunger; but he assumes different forms, just as when incense is mingled with incense; every one gives him the name he pleases. 38. Souls smell in Hades. 41-42. You could not step twice in the same rivers; for other and yet waters are ever flowing on. 44. War is father of all and king of all; and some he made gods and some men, some slaves and some free. 46. Opposition unites. From what draws apart results the most beautiful harmony. All things take place by strife. 57. Good and bad are the same. 62. Men should know that war is general and that justice is strife; all things arise and [pass away] through strife. 68. For to souls it is death to become water, and for water it is death to become earth; but water is formed from earth, and from water, soul. 69. Upward, downward, the way is one and the same. 71. The limits of the soul you could not discover, though traversing every path. 72. It is a delight to souls to become wet. 73. Whenever a man gets drunk, he is led about by a beardless boy, stumbling, not knowing whither he goes, for his soul is wet. 74. The dry soul is wisest and best. 78. Life and death, and waking and sleeping, and youth and old age, are the same; for the latter change and are the former, and the former change back to the latter. 81. In the same rivers we step and we do not step; we are and we are not. 91. Understanding is common to all. It is necessary for those who speak with intelligence to hold fast to the common element of all, as a city holds fast to law, and much more strongly. For all human laws are nourished by one which is divine, and it has power so much as it will; and it suffices for all things and more than suffices. 104. It is not good for men to have whatever they want. Disease makes health sweet and good; hunger, satiety; toil, rest. 109. It is better to conceal ignorance than to put it forth into the midst. 110. It is law to obey the counsel of one. 111. For what sense or understanding have they? They follow the bards and employ the crowd as their teacher, not knowing that many are bad and few good. For the very best choose one thing before all others, immortal glory among mortals, while the masses eat their fill like cattle. 113. To me one man is ten thousand if he be the best. 114. The Ephesians deserve to be hanged, every one that is a man grown, and the youth to abandon the city, for they cast out Hemodorus the best man among them, saying: -- Let no one among us be best, and if one be best, let him be so elsewhere and among others. 119. (He used to say that) Homer deserved to be cast out of the lists and flogged, and Archilochus likewise. 122. There awaits men at death what they do not expect or think. 130. They purify themselves by defiling themselves with blood, as if one who had stepped into the mud were to wash it off with mud. If any one of men should observe him doing so, he would think he was insane. And to these images they pray, just as if one were converse with men's houses, for they know not what gods and heroes are. 131. All things are full of souls and of divine spirits. 134. False opinion of progress is the stoppage of progress. |
|
||||
|
Enrich Your Life With a Philosophy Book... Enrich Your Life With a Philosophy Magazine...
|
|||||
|
|
|||||
|
|
||
|
|
||
[Homepage] [Newsletter] [Search] [Support the Academy] [Link to Us] [Contact the Academy] [Citing Articles from Our Website] [Privacy Policy & Disclaimer]
Copyright 1998-99, 2000-01, 2002-03, & 2004 by The Radical Academy. All Rights Reserved.