This is a famous saying of the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus, who was born around 540 BC in Ephesus. Regarded as an arrogant misanthrope, he eventually left his fellow Ephesians in disgust and took to the surrounding hills and mountains. There he wandered as he pleased, eating wild plants that he found and contemplating life. 

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He described the fundamental element as fire, while previous philosophers had argued for water or air; the foundation from which the world, in its present diversity, was created. While Thales had posited water, and anaximenes countered with air,  Heraclitus reasoned that these couldn't account for stones and birds and the myriad things he saw around him.
The only constant was change .

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 He pictured the world in a constant state of flux when he said "The World is, has been and ever shall be an ever living Fire - kindling and going out in turn by degree." 

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His views on fire as the fundamental force have benefitted from modern appreciation thanks to similarities with ideas of energy in modern physics, which flows and can be transformed into material forms.

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