Q0015

Heraclitus

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

Upon those who step into the same rivers, different and different waters flow.
Thinker Heraclitus
School Pre-Socratic
Source B12
Theme Change
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with B12, within the tradition of Pre-Socratic. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of change, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Heraclitus's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Heraclitus. (n.d.). Upon those who step into the same rivers, different and different waters flow. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0015

MLA: Heraclitus. “Upon those who step into the same rivers,….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0015.

Chicago: Heraclitus. “Upon those who step into the same rivers,….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0015.

Same thinker

More from Heraclitus

  1. A person's character is their destiny.
  2. What is opposed brings together; from what differs comes the finest harmony.
  3. I searched for myself.

All quotations by Heraclitus

Same theme

More on change

  1. The universe is change; life is opinion.
  2. The art of progress is to preserve order amid change, and to preserve change amid order.
  3. For a conscious being, to exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.
  4. I do not portray being. I portray passing.
  5. When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.

Browse the change theme