# Heraclitus's most famous sayings

'You cannot step into the same river twice', 'War is the father of all things', 'Nature loves to hide': the most quoted fragments of Heraclitus of Ephesus, with their Diels-Kranz number.

- 37 votes · 15 items
- Nov 3, 2020 · José Cervantes
- https://even.best/en/l/4645/heraclitus-s-most-famous-sayings

## Top 15

1. **You cannot step into the same river twice.** (4 · ▲4 ▼0) — Fragment B91, preserved by Plutarch.
2. **Nature loves to hide.** (4 · ▲4 ▼0) — Fragment B123.
3. **Dogs bark at those they do not know.** (4 · ▲4 ▼0) — Fragment B97.
4. **Everything flows.** (3 · ▲3 ▼0) — Attributed: 'panta rhei' is in no fragment; it sums up his thought as reported by Plato and Simplicius.
5. **The way up and the way down are one and the same.** (3 · ▲3 ▼0) — Fragment B60.
6. **Those who seek gold dig up much earth and find little.** (3 · ▲3 ▼0) — Fragment B22.
7. **Character is a man's fate.** (2 · ▲2 ▼0) — Fragment B119 ('ethos anthropoi daimon').
8. **The hidden harmony is better than the visible one.** (2 · ▲2 ▼0) — Fragment B54.
9. **The sun is new each day.** (2 · ▲2 ▼0) — Fragment B6.
10. **The waking share one common world; the sleeping each turn away to a world of their own.** (2 · ▲2 ▼0) — Fragment B89.
11. **Much learning does not teach understanding.** (2 · ▲2 ▼0) — Fragment B40, which goes on: 'otherwise it would have taught Hesiod and Pythagoras'.
12. **You would not find the limits of the soul even if you travelled every road, so deep is its logos.** (2 · ▲2 ▼0) — Fragment B45.
13. **War is the father of all things and king of all.** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — Fragment B53.
14. **Eyes are more accurate witnesses than ears.** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — Fragment B101a.
15. **Illness makes health pleasant; hunger, fullness; weariness, rest.** (0 · ▲1 ▼1) — Fragment B111.

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