Guy Davenport Quotes

The world is but a perpetual see-saw.

You could not step twice into the same rivers; for other waters are ever flowing on to you.

All is flux, nothing is stationary.

All things come into being through opposition and all are in flux like a river

All is flux; nothing stays still.

All entities move and nothing remains still.

A scale is only in balance for a brief second. Inevitably the pendulum swings. It's impossible to maintain.

Five hundred years before Christ was born, the Greek philosopher Heraclitus told his students that "everything changes except the law of change". He said: "You cannot step in the same river twice." The river changes every second; and so does the man who stepped in it. Life is a ceaseless change. The only certainty is today. Why mar the beauty of living today by trying to solve the problems of a future that is shrouded in ceaseless change and uncertainty-a future that no one can possibly foretell?

Life is a constant back-and-forth. We take a breath in and then we breathe out. The same is true for the culture as a whole.

You cannot step twice into the same river.

Nothing that is can pause or stay.

The idea is that flowing water never goes stale, so just keep on flowing.

No one has ever stepped twice into the same river. But did anyone ever step twice into the same book?

Nothing ever is, everything is becoming.

All things flow, nothing abides.

Nothing is, everything is becoming.

Heraclitus somewhere says that all things are in process and nothing stays still, and likening existing things to the stream of a river he says that you would not step twice into the same river.

You can step in the same river but the water will always be new.

A day, a livelong day, is not one thing but many. It changes not only in growing light toward zenith and decline again, but in texture and mood, in tone and meaning, warped by a thousand factors of season, of heat or cold, of still or multi winds, torqued by odors, tastes, and the fabrics of ice or grass, of bud or leaf or black-drawn naked limbs. And as a day changes so do its subjects, bugs and birds, cates, dogs, butterflies and people.

I think everything happens in time. There's a time for everything. There's a time to be in a group, and there's a time to be solo.

What do we call the river? Every moment the water is changing, the shore is changing, every moment the environment is changing, what is the river then? It is the name of this series of changes.

Things bloosom in their time. They bud and bloom, blossom and fade. Everything in its time.

I have been in love with the thought of Heraclitus.

No one can step twice into the same river, nor touch mortal substance twice in the same condition. By the speed of its change, it scatters and gathers again.

The best time to set up a new discipline is when the idea is strong.