Meditations IV.43

As a river⁶⁹ consisting of all things that come into being, aye, a rushing torrent, is Time. No sooner is a thing sighted than it is carried past, and lo, another is passing, and it too will be carried away.

• 69.ii. 17; v. 23; vi. 15 (Heraclitus).

  Heraclitus of Ephesus (fl. c. 500 BC) wrote in compressed, riddling aphorisms; the river image is his, in the saying that no one steps into the same river twice.