Tag Archives: dicta

“The road up and the road down are the same thing”

Heraclitus by Hendrick ter Brugghen

Heraclitus by Hendrick ter Brugghen

Via research into the canonical Giordano Bruno I stumbled upon the concept of the unity of opposites, which in turn led me to Heraclitus who is famous for two dicta: one involving a river: “You cannot step in the same river twice” and one involving a road, “The road up and the road down are the same thing.”

I’ve put the two dicta above in my category Dicta at http://artandpopularculture.com/Dicta. I currently have 330 dicta. The first 330 of what will become an unranked top 1000.

I spent some time trying to find out why Heraclitus is often depicted with a globe. Unsuccessfully. Anyone?

The heart has its reasons, of which reason knows nothing

The heart has its reasons, of which reason knows nothing (c.1887) by Odilon Redon, a dictum from the Pensées (1669) by Blaise Pascal

Over the course of the last six months, I’ve assembled a collection of dicta.

A dictum is an authoritative statement; a dogmatic saying; an adage, a maxim, an apothegm.

My method of collecting: Every time I read or heard or thought of an interesting dictum, I added it to the category.

There are now 200 articles in this category, a list of which you find below. 

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A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

I cont.

L

M

N

O

P

P cont.

Q

R

S

T

U

W

Y