"ἐὰν μὴ ἔλπηται ἀνέλπιστον, οὐκ ἐξευρήσει"
— Heraclitus
January 1, 1970
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Added on April 10, 2026
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Philosophers from Greece
Natural philosophers
Physicists from Greece
Cosmologists
Presocratic philosophers
Original Language: English
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Unless you expect the unexpected, you will not find it, for it is hidden and thickly tangled. — Rendering ἐὰν μή "unless" is more English-friendly without being inaccurate. As for the last clause, the point is that you can neither find it nor navigate your way through it. The alpha-privatives suggest using similar metaphoric adjectives to keep the Greek 'feel.' (S. N. Jenks, 2014)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Heraclitus
Unless you expect the unexpected, you will not find it, for it is hidden and thickly tangled. — Rendering ἐὰν μή "unless" is more English-friendly without being inaccurate. As for the last clause, the point is that you can neither find it nor navigate your way through it. The alpha-privatives suggest using similar metaphoric adjectives to keep the Greek 'feel.' (S. N. Jenks, 2014)