Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy

Heraclitus pointed out that the world is characterized by opposites. If we were never ill, we would not know what it was to be well. If we never knew hunger, we would take no pleasure in being full. If there were never any war, we would not appreciate peace. And if there were no winter, we would never see the spring.

You can’t experience being alive without realizing that you have to die, she thought. But it’s just as impossible to realize you have to die without thinking how incredibly amazing it is to be alive.

He who cannot draw on three thousand years

Is living from hand to mouth

GOETHE

“Everything flows,” said Heraclitus. Everything is in constant flux and movement, nothing is abiding. Therefore we “cannot step twice into the same river.” When I step into the river for the second time, neither I nor the river are the same.

Both good and bad have their inevitable place in the order of things, Heraclitus believed. Without this constant interplay of opposites the world would cease to exist.

Heraclitus pointed out that the world is characterized by opposites. If we were never ill, we would not know what it was to be well. If we never knew hunger, we would take no pleasure in being full. If there were never any war, we would not appreciate peace. And if there were no winter, we would never see the spring.

… at some point something must have come from nothing …

He who cannot draw on three thousand years

Is living from hand to mouth

GOETHE

Grownups really were idiotic sometimes.

Why did people quit playing when they grew up?