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Strife is justice

Heraclitus said "strife is justice" and "all things take place by strife". He called the opposites in conflict ἔρις (eris), " strife ", and theorized that the apparently unitary state, δίκη (dikê), " justice ", results in "the most beautiful harmony ", in contrast to Anaximander, who described the same as injustice.

Aristotle said Heraclitus disagreed with Homer because Homer wished that strife would leave the world, which according to Heraclitus would destroy the world; "there would be no harmony without high and low notes, and no animals without male and female, which are opposites". It may also explain why he disagreed with the Pythagorean emphasis on harmony, but not on strife.

Heraclitus suggests that the world and its various parts are kept together through the tension produced by the unity of opposites, like the string of a bow or a lyre. On one account, this is the earliest use of the concept of force. A quote about the bow shows his appreciation for wordplay: "The bow's name is life, but its work is death." Each substance contains its opposite, making for a continual circular exchange of generation, destruction, and motion that results in the stability of the world. This can be illustrated by the quote "Even the kykeon separates if it is not stirred."

According to Abraham Schoener: "War is the central principle in Heraclitus' thought." Another of Heraclitus's famous sayings highlights the idea that the unity of opposites is also a conflict of opposites: "War is father of all and king of all; and some he manifested as gods, some as men; some he made slaves, some free"; war is a creative tension that brings things into existence. Heraclitus says further "Gods and men honour those slain in war"; "Greater deaths gain greater portions"; and "Every beast is tended by blows."