Socrates made such an impact on the field of philosophy that anyone who came before him are lumped together as "the pre-Socratic philosophers." Of those Heraclitus is one of the most prominent, and if you ever feel like reading him then I feel fucking sorry for you. Much like Sun Tzu Heraclitus' works are mostly easily-quotable one-liners but unlike Sun Tzu half the time they make no goddamned sense. There are vague statements like "the eyes are better witnesses than the ears" or "lightning rules all," and you spend forever trying to figure out what the hell he meant by that. Admittedly his works are fragmentary, but I get the feeling his contemporaries thought he was a nutjob too. The Greek historian Neanthes wrote of his death: After contracting dropsy, he went to doctors and asked if they could make a drought after a heavy rain. When they couldn't comprehend what the hell he was talking about, he covered himself with cow shit, expecting its warmth would pull out the liquid in his body. Of course that didn't work and he died. Most historians think that story apocryphal, but considering the whole thing is a jab at his penchant for nonsensical question and philosophy (which was about fire and warmth), most likely its author found him as weird as I do. If you want to preach a certain point of view, you should provide a logical system for your audience to understand. Otherwise some asshole is going to spread rumors about you dying in cow crap.