You cannot step into the same river twice.
Meaning of the quote
The quote means that the world is always changing, and you can never experience the exact same situation twice. The river keeps flowing, so the water you step into is different each time. Similarly, your life and the world around you are constantly changing, so you can never repeat the same experience exactly as it was before.
More quotes from Heraclitus
Men who wish to know about the world must learn about it in its particular details.
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It is hard to contend against one’s heart’s desire; for whatever it wishes to have it buys at the cost of soul.
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The way up and the way down are one and the same.
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If you do not the expect the unexpected you will not find it, for it is not to be reached by search or trail.
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Big results require big ambitions.
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The best people renounce all for one goal, the eternal fame of mortals; but most people stuff themselves like cattle.
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The sun is new each day.
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Hide our ignorance as we will, an evening of wine soon reveals it.
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Nothing endures but change.
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God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, surfeit and hunger.
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There is nothing permanent except change.
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Couples are wholes and not wholes, what agrees disagrees, the concordant is discordant. From all things one and from one all things.
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No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.
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Character is destiny.
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Even sleepers are workers and collaborators in what goes on in the Universe.
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Nature is wont to hide herself.
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Much learning does not teach understanding.
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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.
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Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.
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Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony.
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I am what libraries and librarians have made me, with little assistance from a professor of Greek and poets.
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Corpses are more fit to be thrown out than is dung.
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Deliberate violence is more to be quenched than a fire.
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A man’s character is his guardian divinity.
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The chain of wedlock is so heavy that it takes two to carry it – and sometimes three.
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The eyes are more exact witnesses than the ears.
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Justice will overtake fabricators of lies and false witnesses.
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To God everything is beautiful, good, and just; humans, however, think some things are unjust and others just.
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No one that encounters prosperity does not also encounter danger.
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Bigotry is the sacred disease.
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Change alone is unchanging.
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You could not step twice into the same rivers; for other waters are ever flowing on to you.
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Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.
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You cannot step into the same river twice.
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A man’s character is his fate.
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Eyes and ears are poor witnesses to people if they have uncultured souls.
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To do the same thing over and over again is not only boredom: it is to be controlled by rather than to control what you do.
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