Heraclitus

Literature & Philosophy~535 BC – ~475 BC

Everything flows — the Obscure One

The dark philosopher of Ephesus. His surviving fragments — oracular, paradoxical, magnificent — declare that everything is in flux, that opposites are one, and that fire is the logos of the cosmos. 'You cannot step into the same river twice.' Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger all claimed him as ancestor.

Key works

  • Fragments~500 BC~130 surviving fragments — gnomic, incandescent

Connections

External