Heraclitus

"Herakleitos is not a believer in absolute relativity. The process of the world is not merely a circle, but an "upward and downward path.""

"At the upper end, where the two paths meet, we have the pure fire, in which, as there is no separation, there is no relativity."

"[W]hile to man some things are evil and some things are good, all things are good to God (fr.61). ...[B]y God ...Herakleitos meant fire. He also calls it the "one wise," and perhaps said... it "knows all things." ...[H]e meant to say ...in it the opposition and relativity which are universal in the world disappear. ...[T]o this ...frs. 96, 97, and 98 refer."

"Herakleitos speaks of "wisdom" or the "wise" in two senses. ...[H]e said wisdom was "something apart from everything else" (fr. 18), meaning ...the perception of the unity of the many ...[H]e also applies the term to that unity... regarded as the "thought that directs the course of all things." This is synonymous with the pure fire which is not differentiated into two parts, one taking the upward and the other the downward path. That alone has wisdom; the partial things we see have not. We ourselves are only wise in so far as we are fiery (fr. 74)."

"With... reservations, Herakleitos was prepared to call the one Wisdom by the name of Zeus. Such... appears to be the meaning of fr. 65. It is not... to be pictured in the form of a man. In saying this, Herakleitos would only have been repeating... Anaximander and Xenophanes. He agrees further with Xenophanes in holding that this "god"... is one; but his polemic against popular religion was directed... against the rites and ceremonies... [rather] than their mere mythological outgrowth."

"He gives a list (fr. 124) of some of the most characteristic religious figures of his time, and... threatened them with the wrath to come."

"He comments upon the absurdity of praying to images (fr. 126), and... that blood-guiltiness can be washed out by the shedding of blood (fr. 130)."

"He seems also to have said that it was absurd to celebrate the worship of Dionysos by cheerful and licentious ceremonies, while was propitiated by gloomy rites (fr. 127). According to the mystic doctrine itself, the two were really one; and the one Wisdom ought to be worshipped in its integrity."

"The few fragments which deal with theology and religion hardly suggest to us that Herakleitos was in sympathy with the religious revival of the time, and yet we have been asked to consider his system "in the light of the idea of the mysteries.""

"The moral teaching of Herakleitos has sometimes been regarded as an anticipation of the "commonsense" theory of Ethics."

"The "common" upon which Herakleitos insists is... very different from common sense, for which... he had the greatest... contempt (fr. 111). It is... his strongest objection to "the many," that they live each in his own world (fr. 95), as if they had a private wisdom of their own (fr. 92); and public opinion is therefore... opposite of "the common.""

"The Ethics of Herakleitos are to be regarded as a corollary of his anthropological and cosmological views. Their chief requirement... keep our souls dry, and thus assimilate them to the one Wisdom... fire. That is what is... "common," and the greatest fault is to act like men asleep (fr. 94)... by letting our souls grow moist, to cut ourselves off from the fire in the world."

"The wise man would not try to secure good without its correlative evil. He would not seek for rest without exertion, nor expect to enjoy contentment without first suffering discontent. He would not complain that he had to take the bad with the good, but would consistently look at things as a whole."

"Herakleitos prepared the way for the Stoic world-state by comparing "the common" to the laws of a city. And these are... more than a type of the divine law: they are imperfect embodiments of it. They cannot... exhaust it altogether; for in all human affairs there is an element of relativity (fr. 91). "Man is a baby compared to God" (fr. 97). Such as they are, however, the city must fight for them as for its walls; and, if it has the good fortune to possess a citizen with a dry soul, he is worth ten thousand (fr. 113); for in him alone is "the common" embodied."

"If there were no cold, there would be no heat; for a thing can only grow warm if... it is already cold."