Author Guide · Ancient Greek Philosophy
Books Written by
Around 500 BC, in the Ionian port of Ephesus, Heraclitus wrote a single book on papyrus and, according to Diogenes Laertius, deposited it in the Temple of Artemis. The book is lost. What survives are over 100 short fragments, quoted by later writers such as Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, Clement of Alexandria and Hippolytus, some of them centuries after his death. Even in antiquity he was called “the Riddler” and “the Dark”, and later the weeping philosopher. Since the sixteenth century scholars have gathered the fragments into editions, each with its own order and numbering; the one most cited today was made by Hermann Diels in 1903. This guide covers the 8 key editions and translations, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 8 key editions and translations · c. 500 BC–2016 · Updated October 2026
ClickTap a spine to jump to that book below.
Quick answer
Heraclitus wrote one book, whose title is unknown; later writers called it On Nature. It is lost, and only over 100 fragments survive, quoted by later authors. Scholars cite them by Diels–Kranz numbers from Hermann Diels’s Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (1903). For readers, the main English versions are Charles H. Kahn’s The Art and Thought of Heraclitus (1979), T. M. Robinson’s Fragments (1987) and Brooks Haxton’s Fragments (2001). Start with the fragments themselves in Haxton’s short bilingual edition, then read Kahn. Below: every key edition in order, and what the numbers mean.
Where to Start with Heraclitus
If you want the fragments in a short, readable book
→ Haxton (2001) — 130 fragments in free verse, with the Greek alongside.
If you want every fragment explained
→ Kahn (1979) — translation and commentary, in a readable order.
If you want the Greek beside a plain translation
→ Robinson (1987) — the Greek text, an English version and a commentary.
If you want the standard numbering scholars use
→ Diels–Kranz (1903) — the source of every “DK 22B” reference.
Heraclitus’s Fragments: 8 Key Editions and Translations, in Order
The Fragments
Heraclitus wrote one work, on papyrus; its title is unknown, and later writers called it On Nature. Diogenes Laertius says he deposited it in the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus and that it was divided into three parts, on the universe, politics and theology. Plutarch and Clement of Alexandria still quote it directly, so it survived at least into the second century AD. Today only over 100 fragments remain: short sayings on the unity of opposites, change, fire and the logos, the order behind the world.
Ingram Bywater: Heracliti Ephesii reliquiae
The Oxford scholar Ingram Bywater’s edition of Heracliti Ephesii reliquiae, published in Oxford in 1877, gathered the fragments in Greek with their ancient sources. John Burnet’s English translation in Early Greek Philosophy follows Bywater’s order and numbering.
Hermann Diels: Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker
Hermann Diels’s collection of all the early Greek philosophers before Socrates, in Greek with German translation, first published in 1903. Diels revised it three more times; Walther Kranz produced the fifth edition (1934–37), and a sixth followed in 1952. Each thinker has a number, and Heraclitus is 22. Within each chapter, A marks ancient reports about his life and ideas, B his exact words and C later imitations, so “DK 22B22” is fragment 22 of Heraclitus. Scholars still cite Heraclitus by these numbers.
G. S. Kirk: Heraclitus: The Cosmic Fragments
Geoffrey Kirk’s edition, published by Cambridge University Press in 1954, prints the fragments that deal with the world as a whole, with an introduction and a long commentary, in over 400 pages. It is a scholar’s book rather than a first read; Cambridge reissued it in paperback in 2010.
Charles H. Kahn: The Art and Thought of Heraclitus
An edition of the fragments with translation and commentary, published by Cambridge University Press in December 1979. Kahn rearranges the fragments in a readable order of his own, and argues that Heraclitus had a systematic view of human life and death within nature, and a theory of language that uses ambiguity to say several things at once.
T. M. Robinson: Heraclitus: Fragments
A text and translation with a commentary by T. M. Robinson, published by University of Toronto Press in 1987 as the second volume of the Phoenix Presocratics series. It gives the Greek text and an English translation of each fragment, with a commentary.
Brooks Haxton: Fragments: The Collected Wisdom of Heraclitus
The poet Brooks Haxton’s free-verse translation of 130 fragments, with the Greek on the facing page and a foreword by James Hillman. Viking published it in hardback in 2001; Penguin Classics has published the paperback, simply titled Fragments, since 2003. At 128 pages it is the shortest way into the whole of what survives.
André Laks and Glenn W. Most: Early Greek Philosophy
A multi-volume edition of the early Greek philosophers for the Loeb Classical Library, published by Harvard University Press in 2016, with Greek and English on facing pages. It gathers the fragments and the ancient reports about each thinker, Heraclitus included.
In What Order to Read Heraclitus
There is no reading order in the usual sense: Heraclitus wrote one book, and no one knows how its sentences were arranged. Each editor has put the fragments in a different order. Kahn, for example, rearranges them in a readable order of his own, so the same saying can carry several numbers. The Diels–Kranz number is the one scholars use to refer to a fragment, which makes it the easiest way to compare translations.
For a first read, start with a complete translation that keeps the fragments short: Haxton’s Fragments (2001), with the Greek alongside. Then read Kahn’s The Art and Thought of Heraclitus (1979), which explains each fragment. Robinson (1987) gives the Greek with a plainer translation and commentary; Kirk (1954) and the Loeb edition by Laks and Most (2016) are for readers who want the ancient sources and the scholarly argument.
A reading path
1. Haxton’s Fragments: all 130 fragments in an evening
2. Kahn’s The Art and Thought of Heraclitus, fragment by fragment
3. Robinson’s Heraclitus: Fragments, with the Greek and a commentary
4. Kirk, then Laks and Most in the Loeb, for the ancient sources
Earlier Collections of the Fragments
Beyond the 8 key editions and translations: 2 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Earlier collections and translations
2
2 books · 1573–1920
- 1573Poesis philosophicaHenri Estienne’s collection, with about forty fragments of Heraclitus
- 1920Early Greek PhilosophyJohn Burnet’s English translation of the fragments, arranged in Bywater’s order (third edition)
The years · 1573–2016
Quick facts about Heraclitus
- Known for
- Short, riddling sayings, surviving only as quotations, which argue that the world is held together by change and by the unity of opposites.
- 1573
- Estienne’s Poesis philosophica gathers about forty fragments
- 1580
- Montaigne’s Essays include “Of Democritus and Heraclitus”
- 1877
- Bywater’s Oxford edition of the fragments
- 1903
- Diels’s Fragmente der Vorsokratiker sets the standard numbering
- 2016
- Laks and Most’s Loeb Early Greek Philosophy
- Flourished
- c. 500 BC; the traditional date is the 69th Olympiad, 504–501 BC
- Born
- Ephesus, an Ionian port in western Asia Minor (now Turkey), then in the Persian Empire; son of Blyson
- Died
- Date unknown; Diogenes Laertius tells a story of a failed cure for dropsy
- Works
- One book, title unknown, later called On Nature; lost, over 100 fragments survive
- Nicknames
- “The Riddler”, “the Dark” (Latin: the Obscure), the weeping philosopher
- Diels–Kranz number
- 22: his fragments are cited as DK 22B1, 22B2 and so on
The red mark is 1903, when Hermann Diels published Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, whose numbers are still how every fragment of Heraclitus is cited.
How Heraclitus Wrote: Riddles, Paradox and Play on Words
Heraclitus wrote in short, compressed sentences, closer to proverbs than to arguments. In John Burnet’s translation: “Those who seek for gold dig up much earth and find a little.” Many fragments are a single line, and some are only a phrase, because the writers who quoted them took only what they needed. That brevity, and his habit of saying things that seem to contradict themselves, earned him the names “the Riddler” and “the Dark” in antiquity.
His favourite move is the paradox that turns out to describe something real. “We step and do not step into the same rivers; we are and are not,” runs one version of the river fragment in Burnet’s translation: the river stays the same river because its water keeps changing. Opposites, for him, belong together, and constant change is held in balance by an order he calls the logos; fire, always changing yet always fire, is his chief image of it.
He also plays with language. Charles Kahn argues that Heraclitus uses deliberate ambiguity, so that a single sentence carries several meanings at once, which is one reason translations differ so much. Because no fragment comes with its original context, every edition is also an interpretation, and later readers, from Plato and the Stoics to Hegel, Nietzsche and Heidegger, have found very different thinkers in the same sentences.
Frequently asked questions about Heraclitus’s Fragments
How many books has Heraclitus written?
One. He wrote a single book, whose title is unknown; later writers called it On Nature. It is lost, and only over 100 fragments survive as quotations in other authors. This page lists that work and 7 key editions and translations of the fragments, with two earlier collections below.
What are Heraclitus’s books in order?
His one book dates from around 500 BC. The key editions of the fragments, in order, are Ingram Bywater’s (1877), Hermann Diels’s Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (1903), G. S. Kirk’s Heraclitus: The Cosmic Fragments (1954), Charles H. Kahn’s The Art and Thought of Heraclitus (1979), T. M. Robinson’s Heraclitus: Fragments (1987), Brooks Haxton’s Fragments (2001) and André Laks and Glenn W. Most’s Loeb Early Greek Philosophy (2016).
Where should I start with Heraclitus?
With the fragments themselves, in a short complete translation: Brooks Haxton’s Fragments (2001) gives 130 of them in 128 pages, with the Greek alongside. Then read Charles H. Kahn’s The Art and Thought of Heraclitus (1979), which explains each one.
What is Heraclitus’s most famous book?
He wrote only one, now lost, so his fame rests on the fragments. The best known is the river fragment, usually quoted as “you cannot step into the same river twice”, and the saying translated by John Burnet as “Man’s character is his fate.”
Why do only fragments of Heraclitus survive?
His book was copied for several centuries — Plutarch and Clement of Alexandria still quote it directly in the second century AD — but no copy has come down to us. Everything we have is a quotation or paraphrase in a later writer: Plato and Aristotle, Plutarch, Clement (who preserves more fragments than anyone else), Hippolytus, Sextus Empiricus, Diogenes Laertius and Stobaeus, among others. Two fragments also appear in the Derveni papyrus. Because each writer quoted for his own purposes, we rarely know the original context or order.
What do the Diels–Kranz numbers mean?
They come from Hermann Diels’s Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (1903), revised by Walther Kranz (fifth edition 1934–37, sixth 1952). Heraclitus is author 22. A marks testimonia, ancient accounts of his life and ideas; B marks his exact words; C marks imitations. So “Those who seek for gold dig up much earth and find a little” is cited as DK 22B22, or simply B22.
Did Heraclitus really say you can’t step into the same river twice?
Not in those words, as far as we know. The river fragment survives in three ancient versions: “On those who step into the same rivers, different and different waters flow” (quoted via Arius Didymus), “We both step and do not step into the same river” (Heraclitus Homericus) and “It is not possible to step into the same river twice” (Plutarch). The scholar Karl Reinhardt took the first as genuine. The slogan “everything flows” (panta rhei) is also attributed to him, but few modern scholars think he said it; Plato’s Cratylus has a similar phrase.
Why was Heraclitus called the Obscure and the weeping philosopher?
Timon of Phlius called him “the Riddler”, and the ancient treatise On the Cosmos called him “the Dark”, rendered in Latin as “the Obscure”, for his cryptic style. “The weeping philosopher” sets him against Democritus, “the laughing philosopher”, a pairing Montaigne took up in his essay “Of Democritus and Heraclitus”.
How did Heraclitus die?
No one knows. Diogenes Laertius tells that, suffering from dropsy, he tried to cure himself by covering himself in dung and died; other ancient writers give different versions. Scholars suspect these stories parody his own sayings, such as the claim that a dry soul is best.
Which translation of Heraclitus should I read?
For a short, readable first version, Brooks Haxton’s Fragments (2001; Penguin Classics). For translation with a full commentary, Charles H. Kahn’s The Art and Thought of Heraclitus (1979). For the Greek with an English translation and commentary, T. M. Robinson’s Heraclitus: Fragments (1987). For the ancient sources in Greek and English, Laks and Most’s Loeb Early Greek Philosophy (2016). John Burnet’s older translation in Early Greek Philosophy is free online.
Footnotes
- Heraclitus — Wikipedia
- Diels–Kranz numbering — Wikipedia
- Diels-Kranz Numbering System — Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- The Art and Thought of Heraclitus — Cambridge University Press
- Fragments by Heraclitus, translated by Brooks Haxton — Penguin Random House
- Heraclitus of Ephesus: Fragments (Burnet’s translation) — Western Kentucky University
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Man’s character is his fate.”
— Heraclitus, fragment 121, in John Burnet’s translation, Early Greek Philosophy (1920)
If this shelf interested you, the full bookshelf has more: reading lists by theme, author guides, and notes on what is actually worth your time.
Browse the full bookshelf Get book recommendations