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03 February 2013

Being v. Becoming, Pt. 2(a): The River Once—Πάντα ῥεῖ

  • Men that love wisdom must be acquainted with very many things indeed.
  • But a knowledge of many things does not teach one to have intelligence...
  • Wisdom is one thing: to understand the thought which steers all things through all things.
    • It is the thunderbolt that steers the course of all things.
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  • This world-order, the same for all, no god made or any man, but it always was and is and will be an ever-living fire, kindling by measure and going out by measure.
  • Before you play with fire, whether it be to kindle or extinguish it, put out first the flames of presumption, which overestimates itself and takes poor measure because it forgets the way the world unfolds before you.
  • Man, too, is kindled and put out like a light in the nighttime.
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  • All things come into being through opposition, and all are in flux like a river.
  • Sea water is very pure and very impure; drinkable and healthful for fishes, but undrinkable and destructive to men.
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  • Πάντα ε (panta rhei): "everything flows" 
  • Upon those who step into the same rivers flow other and yet other waters.
  • No man ever steps in the same river twice, for neither is it the same river nor is he the same man.

River Stepping: ʻĪao Stream, Maui
[as often with pics: Click to embiggen, Scroll-over for hover text]
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Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraclitus
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Fragments_of_Heraclitus
An Introduction to Early Greek Philosophy: The Chief Fragments and Ancient Testimony, with Connecting Commentary, ed. John Mansley Robinson (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1968)
M. Heidegger, Early Greek Thinking (Harper & Row, 1975)

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous4/2/13 00:05

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  2. Lost me there, Thundra.

    ReplyDelete
  3. As long as I've still got my Darkthrone albums after each change of yours truly, I'm cool.

    ReplyDelete