Full Idea
Empedocles claims that things are alternately changing and at rest - that they are changing whenever love is creating a unity out of plurality, or hatred is creating plurality out of unity, and they are at rest in the times in between.
Gist of Idea
Empedocles says things are at rest, unless love unites them, or hatred splits them
Source
report of Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]) by Aristotle - Physics 250b26
Book Reference
Aristotle: 'Physics', ed/tr. Waterfield,Robin [OUP 1996], p.185
A Reaction
I suppose one must say that this an example of Ruskin's 'pathetic fallacy' - reading human emotions into the cosmos. Being constructive little creatures, we think goodness leads to construction. I'm afraid Empedocles is just wrong.