Thinking is a sacred disease and sight is deceptive.
HeraclitusRead
Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day. Protracted and patient effort is needed to develop good character.
Interpretation
Good character is developed gradually through consistent efforts over time.
Heraclitus emphasizes that the formation of good character is a slow and steady process that requires ongoing dedication and patience. Rather than being built in a short period, it is cultivated through daily actions and experiences, highlighting the importance of persistent effort in the journey of personal growth.
In practice
In a motivational speech about personal growth, one could use this quote to illustrate the importance of consistency.
Thinking is a sacred disease and sight is deceptive.
Things of which there is sight, hearing, apprehension, these I prefer.
Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.
For when is death not within our selves? And as Heracleitus says: βLiving and dead are the same, and so are awake and asleep, young and old. The former when shifted are the latter, and again the latter when shifted are the former."
Whosoever wishes to know about the world must learn about it in its particular details. Knowledge is not intelligence. In searching for the truth be ready for the unexpected. Change alone is unchanging. The same road goes both up and down. The beginning of a circle is also its end. Not I, but the world says it: all is one. And yet everything comes in season.
Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.
Wit lies in recognizing the resemblance among things which differ and the difference between things which are alike.
In some situations I was difficult, in odd moments impossible, in rare moments loathsome, but at my best unapproachably great.
What if what made me do all those things everyone thought I shouldn't have done was what also had got me here? What if I was never redeemed? What if I already was?
When a warrior learns to stop the internal dialogue, everything becomes possible; the most far-fetched schemes become attainable.
The man who cannot wonder, who does not habitually wonder (and worship), were he President of innumerable Royal Societies, and carried the whole Mecanique Celeste and Hegel's Philosophy, and the epitome of all Laboratories and Observatories with their results, in his single head, is but a Pair of Spectacles behind which there is no Eye. Let those who have Eyes look through him, then he may be useful.
If we like a man's dream, we call him a reformer; if we don't like his dream, we call him a crank.
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