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HERACLITUS Fragments

Heraclitus flourished about 500 BC.
He is the third of the ‘Pre-Socratic� Philosophers known to us.
The first being Thales (around 585 BC) the second Pythagoras (about 532 BC).

Thales believed that the primordial element out of which everything was made, was water.
Anaximenes thought the air was the fundamental element.
Empedocles suggested that in compromise, earth, air, fire and water where the four primitive elements.

Heraclitus preferred fire.

Heraclitus also believed in perpetual change or permanent flux:

“You cannot step twice into the same river; for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you.�
"Just as the river where I step is not the same, and is, so I am as I am not."

Another of his doctrines was the mingling of opposites:
"There would be no unity if there were not opposites to combine."

Some quotes from the fragments:

"The word proves those first hearing it
As numb to understanding
As the ones not heard.
Yet all things follow from the Word."

"For wisdom, listen not to me but the Word,
And know that all is one."

"If learning were a path of wisdom,
Those most learned about myth would not believe, with Hesiod,
That Pallas in her wisdom gloats over the noise of battle."

"Pythagoras may well have been the deepest in his learning of all men.
And still, he claimed to recollect details of former lives,
Being in one a cucumber and one time a sardine."

"The mind of Thales saw in forethought �
Precisely as in heaven � the eclipse."

"Many who have learned from Hesiod the countless names of Gods and monsters,
Never understand that night and day are one."

"War, father of all things, and king,
Names a few to serve as gods, and of the rest
makes these men slaves, those free."

"As for the Ephesians, I would have them, youths, elders and all those between,
go hang themselves, leaving the city in the abler hands of children.
With the banishment of Hermodoros they say, No man should be worthier than average.
Thus my fellow citizens declare, whoever would seek excellence can find it elsewhere
among others."

Heraclitus himself for all his belief in change allowed something everlasting. In his Philosophy, the ever-living fire never dies.
And its permanence is instead that of a process than that of substance.

The doctrine of the perpetual flux, as taught by Heraclitus, is painful, but science can do nothing to refute it.

This little book of FRAGMENTS is interesting as a new translation, but the fragments are few and difficult to connect.
It may leave the reader wishing for a complete picture of the Philosopher.