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Full Idea
They do not understand how that which differs with itself is in agreement: harmony consists of opposing tensions, like that of the bow and the lyre.
Gist of Idea
A thing can have opposing tensions but be in harmony, like a lyre
Source
Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B051), quoted by Hippolytus - Refutation of All Heresies 9.9.2
Book Ref
'Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers', ed/tr. Freeman,Kathleen [Harvard 1957], p.28
A Reaction
Like squabbling couples who resent outside intervention. The remark suggests the virtues of 'dialectic', and may get to the heart of what philosophy is.
| 416 | Beautiful harmony comes from things that are in opposition to one another [Heraclitus] |
| 425 | A thing can have opposing tensions but be in harmony, like a lyre [Heraclitus] |
| 232 | Opposites are as unlike as possible [Plato] |
| 627 | If everything is made of opposites, are the opposed things made of opposites? [Aristotle] |
| 628 | Not everything is composed of opposites; what, for example, is the opposite of matter? [Aristotle] |