Although this Logos exists eternally, men are incapable of understanding it, both before hearing it and once they have heard it for the first time. For although all things happen according to this Logos, they are like people without experience when they experience both words and deeds such as I describe them, distinguishing each thing according to its nature and declaring what it is. But what other men do escapes their attention, just as much as what they do while asleep.

Therefore one must follow what is common to all. Yet although the Logos is common, most men live as if they had an understanding all their own.

All those among men who wish to know with wisdom must, above all, judge soundly the things that are universal: for it is in them, he said, that thought and wisdom reside.

This world, the same for all beings, was made neither by a god nor by a man; but it has always been, is now, and shall ever be an ever-living fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures.

No one of the gods, no one of men, created this world; but it has always been, is now, and shall ever be a fire ever-living, kindling according to measures and going out according to measures. When it kindles, it holds the measures of the birth and growth of things; when it goes out, it holds others, those of their consuming and destruction.

Everything flows, and nothing remains. One never steps into the same river twice, for ever new waters come flowing and passing by. Likewise, the men who live and die in succession replace those who came before them.

One must know that war is common to all, that strife is justice, and that all things come to be through discord and necessity. War is the father of all things, the king of all things: it has revealed some as gods, others as men; it has made some slaves, others free.

The unlike conspires together, and the most beautiful harmony is born of what diverges. All things come about through conflict and necessity. What opposes is useful, and from things at variance springs the most beautiful harmony.

They do not understand how, while differing from itself, it agrees with itself: a harmony of opposing tensions, like that of the bow and the lyre.

Nature loves to hide.

I searched myself.

All men have the power to know themselves and to think with wisdom. Those who seek gold dig up much earth and find little.

The most beautiful ape is ugly compared with the human race. Likewise, the wisest of men will seem an ape, compared with a god, in wisdom, in beauty, and in all the rest.

The man who speaks with intelligence must hold fast to what is common to all, as a city holds fast to its law, and with far greater confidence. For all human laws are nourished by the one divine law, which prevails as far as it will, and suffices for all things, and surpasses all things.

Character is destiny for man.

Wisdom is one thing only: to know the thought that directs all things through all things.

The dry soul is the wisest and best. He who walks the streets marvels at meeting no men: in the morning, one greets the dead.

What we see awake is common to all, death; what we see asleep is private, the dream.

For souls, death becomes water; for water, death becomes earth; but from earth water is born, and from water, soul. The way upward and the way downward are one and the same.

It belongs to souls to divine, striving to understand what is. They leave the body and are born again into the world, as the flame renews itself by feeding on what it consumes.

The sun is new each day: were it not to renew its course, the seasons would be no more. But the light of the sun is never spent; at each dawn it is born again from its own source.

God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, abundance and famine; but he changes forms, as fire does, which, when mingled with perfumes, takes the name of each of them, according to the pleasure of each.

Thought is common to all men. All men have within them the power to think, but most never awaken it. Those who speak with intelligence must hold fast to what is common to all men, as a city holds fast to its laws.

Those who hear without understanding are like the deaf: the saying applies to them. Though present, they are absent.

Wisdom consists in one thing only: knowing by thought how all things are governed through all things.

Many do not understand the things they meet with, and having learned, they do not know; but they are deceived by themselves. Most men understand neither what they see nor what they hear: their soul is a stranger to reason, like that of sleepers.

Wisdom is one thing only: to know the thought that governs all things through all things. He who does not believe in hope will not come to know, for what is hidden does not reveal itself to him who does not seek.