Word: heraclitus
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...Heraclitus - "the obscure philosopher," the pre-Socratic thinker who was a contemporary 2,500 years ago of Confucius, Lao Tzu and the Buddha - is best known as the man who said that you cannot put your foot into the same river twice...
Here is how the poet Brooks Haxton, in his fine new translation of Heraclitus ("Fragments: The Collected Wisdom of Heraclitus," Viking, 99 pages, $19.95) puts the thought...
...Fragments are all that are left of Heraclitus's great book, "On Nature," which was lost many centuries ago. The Fragments have a scattered, enigmatic quality - epigrams and bits of poetry saved from the ruins. But they have a wit, and, for an "obscure" philosopher, a prismatic clarity that travels well across centuries. The thoughts remain fresh and profound. Haxton's translation shines them up handsomely...
...Heraclitus was of royal blood but renounced his heritage. He looked on his fellow Ephesians with a certain aristocratic desdain. He hated the mediocrity of those who "eat their way/ toward sleep like nameless oxen." The Ephesians, he wrote, "say, No man should be/ worthier than average. Thus,/ my fellow citizens declare/ whoever would seek/ excellence can find it/ elsewhere among others...
...read through again with you, word for word, to fill the section time. I am actually looking forward to seeing the readings, as my background in the area is rather weak, though I did get the job over the other two people the professor approached because I could spell 'Heraclitus...