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Definition
| “All things are full of gods” (91). |
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Term
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| “He said that things differ in being through rarity or density. When aēr is rarefied, it becomes fire, when condensed it becomes wind, then cloud, and—further on—water, then earth, then stones, and other things are formed from these. Aēr also causes eternal motion, through which change also occurs” (6.1). |
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| “[He] said that unlimited air [aera apeiron] is the principle [archē], from which things that are coming to be, and have come to be, and will be, and the gods and goddesses, all come into being, and everything else from its offspring” (6.2). |
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| “Just as our soul, being aēr, holds us together and controls us, so do breath [pneuma] and aēr surround the whole cosmos” (6.6). |
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| “[He] determined that air is a god, and that it comes into being, and is measureless and infinite and always in motion” (6.5). |
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| “Mortals think that the gods are born, wear their own clothes, have voices and bodies” (7.5). |
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| “Ethiopians say that their gods are snub-nosed and black, and Thracians that theirs have blue eyes and red hair” (7.6). |
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| “But if oxen, horses or lions had hands, …horses would draw images of gods like horses, and oxen images just like oxen, and they would make the bodies of the gods like those they themselves had” (7.7). |
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| “God is one [theos monos], greatest among gods and men, dissimilar from mortals in body and in thought” (7.11). |
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| “Remaining always in the same place, unmoving, it is not fitting for him to travel here and there; but without exertion, he shakes all things with the thinking of his mind” (7.10). |
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| “All of him sees, all of him thinks, all of him hears” (7.12). |
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| “Of earth this is the upper limit which we see at our feet, in contact with air, but its underneath reaches indefinitely [es apeiron hikneitai]” (7.19). |
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| “All things that come to be and grow are earth and water [gē kai hudōr]” (7.15). |
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Definition
| “For we all came forth from earth and water” (7.16). |
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| “No man has seen what is clear, nor will there be anyone who knows about the gods and all the matters of which I speak. For even if one should happen to speak what is indeed the case, still he himself would not know it. Rather, belief [dokos] covers all things” (7.27). |
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| “Let these things be believed [dedoxasthō] to be like the truth” (7.28). |
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| “By no means did the gods reveal all things to mortals from the beginning [hyp’ archēs], but in time, by seeking [chronōi zētountes], they discover better” (7.29). |
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Definition
| “Nature loves to hide [physis kryptesthai philei]” (10.42) |
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| “Listening not to me but to Logos, it is wise to agree [homologein] that all things are one” (10.47). |
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| “They do not understand how while tending away it agrees with itself—a back-turning harmony, like a bow or a lyre” (10.49). |
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Definition
| “…out of all things there comes a unity, and out of unity all things” (10.48). |
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Definition
| “What is opposed brings together; the finest harmonia is composed of things at variance, and everything comes to be in accord with strife” (10.52). |
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Term
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Definition
| “On those who step into the same rivers ever different [hetera kai hetera] waters flow” (10.64). |
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Term
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Definition
| “It is impossible to step twice into the same river” (10.65). |
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| “Heraclitus the obscure says, ‘We step and do not step into the same rivers, we are & are not’” (10.66). |
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| “[The kosmos] always was and is and shall be an everlasting fire, flaring up in regular measures and dying down in regular measures” (10.77). |
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Definition
| “Everything is an exchange for fire and fire is an exchange for everything, as goods are for gold and gold for goods” (10.80). |
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| “God is day night, winter summer, war peace, satiety hunger, but changes the way [fire,] when mingled with perfumes, is named according to the scent of each” (10.86). |
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| “You must learn everything—both the steady heart of well-rounded truth, and the opinions of mortals [brotōn doxas], in which there is no true reliance [ouk eni pistis alēthēs]” (11.1, lines 28-30). |
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| “…for you cannot know what is not (for it cannot be accomplished) nor can you declare it” (11.2). |
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| “…mortals, knowing nothing, wander, two-headed: for helplessness in their breasts steer their wandering mind. They are borne along deaf and blind alike, dazed, hordes without judgment, by whom [what is] is thought both to be and not to be the same and not the same…” (11.6, lines 4-9). |
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| “You should restrain your thinking from this way of seeking. And do not let habit compel you, along this well-trod path, to wield the aimless eye and noise-filled ear and tongue, but use reason to come to a decision [krinai logōi] on the contentious test that I have announced” (11.7). |
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| “For thinking and being are the same [to gar auto noein estin te kai einai]” (11.3). |
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| “What-is is unborn and imperishable, entire, alone of its kind, unshaken and complete. It was not once nor will it be, since it is now, all together, single and continuous…” (11.8, lines 3-6). |
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Term
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Definition
| “What need could have impelled it to arise later or sooner, if it sprang from an origin in nothing? And so it should either entirely be, or not be at all…” (11.8, lines 9-11). |
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Definition
| “If it came to be, it is not, and likewise if it will be some time in the future. Thus birth has been extinguished and perishing made inconceivable… Now, changeless within the limits of great bonds, it is without beginning and without end, since birth and perishing have been driven far off, and true conviction repelled them” (11.8, lines 20-28). |
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Term
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Definition
| “If there are many things, there are infinitely many things, since there are always other things between two given things, and others again between any two of those, and so things are infinite …” (12.5). |
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Term
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Definition
| “If there is a place, it will be in something, because everything that exists is in something. But what is in something is in a place. Therefore the place will be in a place, and so on ad infinitum. Therefore, there is no such thing as place.” |
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| “Now, since [what-is] did not come into existence, it not only is but always was and always will be, and it has no beginning and no end [archēn ouk echei oude teleutēn], but is apeiron” (15.2). |
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| “And so [what-is] is eternal, unlimited, single, and homogenous. And it can neither be destroyed nor become larger, nor change in organization, nor feel pain, nor suffer loss, because if it were susceptible to any of these things it would no longer be one… Nor is it empty in any respect, for emptiness is nothing, and what is nothing cannot exist” (15.9) |
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| “Fools. For their thoughts are not far-reaching—those who expect that there comes to be what previously was not, or that anything perishes and is completely destroyed” (14.49). |
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| “There is coming to be of not a single one of all mortal things, nor is there any end of destructive death; but only mixture and separation of what was mixed, and ‘nature’ [physis] is the name given to them by humans’” (14.48). |
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| “For all these things—shining sun and earth and sky and sea—are united with their own parts, all that are split off and have come to be in mortal things. In the same way, all that are more fitted for mixture are made alike by Aphrodite and have come to love one another, but if hostile, they draw far apart from one another…” (14.67). |
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Term
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| “For I have already been born as a boy and a girl, a bush and a bird and the fish that leaps from the sea” (14.15). |
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| “Do you not see that you are devouring one another in the carelessness of your thought?” (14.25). |
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| “A father lifts up his own dear son who has changed form and, praying, slaughters him, committing a great folly… slaughters the victim in his home and prepares a vile meal, and likewise a son takes his father, children their mother, deprive them of life and consume their own flesh” (14.27) |
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| “The Greeks do not think correctly about coming to be and perishing. For no thing comes to be, nor does it perish, but it is mixed together with things that are and separated apart from them. And so they would be correct to call coming to be being mixed together, and perishing being separated apart” (13.17). |
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Term
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Definition
| “It is right to suppose that in all things that are being mixed together there are many things of all kinds, and seeds of all things, having all kinds of shapes, colors and flavors” (13.4). |
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Term
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| “In the same seed there are hairs, nails, veins, arteries, sinews and bones. They are unapparent because of the smallness of their portions, but as they grow they gradually separate apart. ‘For how,’ he says, ‘could hair come to be from what is not hair, or flesh from what is not flesh?’” (13.26). |
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Term
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| “In everything there is a portion of everything except mind [nous], but mind is present in some things too” (13.11). |
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Term
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| “The other things have a portion of everything, but mind is unlimited and self-ruled and is mixed with no thing, but is alone and by itself. For if it were not by itself, but were mixed with anything else, it would have a share of all things… For it is the finest of all things and the purest, and it has all judgment about everything, and the greatest strength” (13.12). |
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Term
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Definition
| “[They] hold that the elements are the full and the void; they call them what is and what is not, respectively. What is is full and solid, what is not is void and rare. Since the void exists no less than body, it follows that what is not exists no less than what is. The two together are the material causes of existing things [aitia de tōn ontōn tauta hōs hylēn]” (16.1). |
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| “[He]…assumes that there is an infinitely large place different from [the atoms]. He calls this place ‘void’ and ‘no-thing’ [ouden] and ‘infinite,’ and he calls each of the substances ‘hing’ [den], ‘solid’ and ‘being.’ He thinks that these substances are too small to be perceived by us, that they have all kinds of forms and shapes, and are variously sized” (16.3). |
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Term
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Definition
| “‘By convention sweet,’ he says, ‘by convention bitter, by convention hot, by convention cold, by convention colored; but in reality atoms and void’” (16.50). |
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Term
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Definition
| “In reality we know nothing about anything, but for each person opinion is a reshaping [of the soul-atoms by the atoms entering from without]” (16.53). |
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Term
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Definition
| “In reality we know nothing, for truth is in the depths” (16.55). |
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Term
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Definition
| “Good spirits [euthymiē] arises in men through a moderation of joy and a good balance in life. Deficiencies and excesses tend to change into one another and set up great motions in the soul. Souls moved out of large intervals are neither well settled nor in good cheer. So you should pay attention to what is possible and present, paying little heed to and not dwelling in thought on what is envied or marveled at” (16.59). |
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Term
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Definition
| “Man is the measure of all things [pantōn chrēmatōn to metron estin anthrōpos]—of things that are, that they are; of things that are not, that they are not...” (19.24). |
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| “Concerning the gods, I am unable to know either that they are or that they are not, or what their appearance is like. For many are the things that hinder knowledge: the obscurity of the matter and the shortness of human life” (19.21). |
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| “[Protagoras] was the first to declare that there are two mutually opposed arguments on any subject” (19.16). |
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| “Each of us is the measure of the things which are and the things which are not. Nevertheless, there’s an immense difference between one man and another in just this respect: the things which are and appear to one man are different from those which are and appear to another... A wise man makes the beneficial things be and seem just and admirable to them, instead of any harmful things which used to be so for them. And according to this same principle the sophist is wise, too, in that he can educate his pupils in that way” (19.27). |
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Term
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Definition
| “Logos is a powerful master, which, by means of the smallest and most invisible body accomplishes most divine deeds. For it can put an end to fear, remove grief, instill joy, and increase pity... What, then, keeps us from supposing that Helen, too, against her will, came under the influence of logoi just as if she had been taken by the force of mighty men? For it was possible to see how persuasion prevails, which lacks the appearance of compulsion but has the same power. For logos, which persuaded, compelled the soul, which it persuaded, both to believe what was said and to approve what was done…” (19.20: §8-12). |
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Term
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Definition
| “The power of logos bears the same relation to the order of the soul as the order of drugs has to the nature of bodies. For as different drugs expel different humors from the body, and some put an end to sickness and others to life, so some logoi cause grief, others joy, some fear, others render their hearers bold, and still others drug and bewitch the soul through an evil persuasion” (19.20: §14). |
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Term
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| “We can consider those natural qualities which are essential to all human beings and with which we are all equally endowed, and we find that in the case of all these qualities there is nothing to tell any of us apart as foreigner or Greek.” |
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| “[M]ost of the things that are just according to nomos are established in a way that is hostile to nature. For nomoi have been established for the eyes as to what they must see and what they must not, and for the ears as to what they must hear and what they must not… [etc.]. Now the things from which the nomoi deter humans are no more in accord with or suited to physis than the things which they promote… But the advantages which are established by the nomoi are bonds on physis, and those established by physis are free.” |
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Term
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| “Justice is a matter of not transgressing what the nomoi prescribe in whatever city one is a citizen. A person would make most advantage of justice for himself if he treated the nomoi as important in the presence of witnesses, and treated the decrees of physis as important when alone and with no witnesses present. For the decrees of nomoi’ are extra additions, those of physis are necessary; those of nomoi are the products of agreement, not of natural growth, whereas those of physis are the products of natural growth, not of agreement.” |
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Term
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Definition
| “Men introduced the restraint of nomos, so that justice would be the tyrant of the human race… This was the point, I think, when some shrewd and clever man first invented fear of the gods for mortal men, so that the wicked might have something to fear, even if their deeds or words or thoughts were secret… By means of these stories he not only settled the gods in an appropriate place, but also quenched lawlessness by means of law.” |
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