Heraclitus of Ephesus (Ἡράκλειτος, Herakleitos; c. 535 BC – 475 BC) was a Greek philosopher, known for his doctrine of change being central to the universe, and for establishing the term Logos (λόγος) in Western philosophy as meaning both the source and fundamental order of the Cosmos. He was of distinguished parentage but eschewed his privileged life for a lonely one as a philosopher. Little else is known about his early life and education. He regarded himself as self-taught and a pioneer of wisdom. He was considered a misanthrope given to depression; he was also called "the weeping philosopher", in contrast to Democritus, "the laughing philosopher".
Quotes:
- “Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”
- “The art of living well and the art of dying well are one.”
- “He who is not satisfied with a little is satisfied with nothing.”
- “Self-sufficiency is the greatest of all wealth.”
- “You don’t develop courage by being happy in your relationships everyday. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity.”
- “The greater the difficulty, the more the glory in surmounting it.”
- “We must, therefore, pursue the things that make for happiness, seeing that when happiness is present, we have everything; but when it is absent, we do everything to possess it.”
- “Of all the means to insure happiness throughout the whole life, by far the most important is the acquisition of friends.”
- “It is not so much our friends' help that helps us, as the confidence of their help.”
- “It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly. And it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living a pleasant life.”
- “Not what we have, but what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance.”
- “The wealth required by nature is limited and is easy to procure; but the wealth required by vain ideals extends to infinity.”
- “He who least needs tomorrow, will most gladly greet tomorrow.”
- “Pleasure is the beginning and the end of living happily.”
- “The most important consequence of self-sufficiency is freedom.”
- “The time when you should most of all withdraw into yourself is when you are forced to be in a crowd.”
- “I have never wished to cater to the crowd; for what I know they do not approve, and what they approve I do not know.”
- “If the gods listened to the prayers of men, all humankind would quickly perish since they constantly pray for many evils to befall one another.”
- “When you die, your mind will be gone even faster than your body.”
- “Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.”
- “Let no one delay the study of philosophy while young nor weary of it when old.”
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Quotes by EPICURUS:
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