Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.
Employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for.
The greatest blessing granted to mankind come by way of madness, which is a divine gift.
The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.
I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty.
My advice to you is get married: if you find a good wife you’ll be happy; if not, you’ll become a philosopher.
Are you not ashamed of caring so much for the making of money and for fame and prestige, when you neither think nor care about wisdom and truth and the improvement of your soul?
True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.
God would seem to indicate to us and not allow us to doubt that these beautiful poems are not human, or the work of man, but divine and the work of God; and that the poets are only the interpreters of the Gods…
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms.
…[R]eal wisdom is the property of God, and… human wisdom has little or no value.
He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.
The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our separate ways, I to die, and you to live. Which of these two is better only God knows.
Be of good cheer about death, and know this of a truth, that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.
I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled [poets] to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.
The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.
…[T]hese people… are my dangerous accusers because those who hear them suppose that anyone who inquires into such matters… theories about the heavens… and everything below the earth… must be an atheist.
Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.
Life contains but two tragedies. One is not to get your heart’s desire the other is to get it.
If I save my insight, I don’t attend to weakness of eyesight.
Be slow to fall into friendship, but when you are in, continue firm and constant.
Get not your friends by bare compliments, but by giving them sensible tokens of your love.
Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior.
Let him who would move the world first move himself.
It seems to me that whatever else is beautiful apart from absolute Beauty is beautiful because it partakes of that absolute Beauty, and for no other reason… [I]t is by Beauty that beautiful things are beautiful.
A man who preserves his integrity no real, long-lasting harm can ever come.
By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.
…[S]ome of the opinions which people entertain should be respected, and others should not.
One should never do wrong in return, nor mistreat any man, no matter how one has been mistreated by him.
To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.
I am convinced that I never wrong anyone intentionally…
How can you wonder your travels do you no good, when you carry yourself around with you?
wealth does not bring goodness, but goodness brings wealth and every other blessing, both to the individual and to the state
Wealth does not bring about excellence, but excellence makes wealth and everything else good for men, both individually and collectively.
The only thing I know is that I know nothing, and i am no quite sure that i know that.
…[M]en are put in a sort of guard-post, from which one must not release one’s self or run away…
I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.
My friend…care for your psyche…know thyself, for once we know ourselves, we may learn how to care for ourselves” -Socrates
We cannot live better than in seeking to become better.
…[T]he really important thing is not to live, but to live well… [a]nd to live well means the same thing as to live honourably or rightly…
Do you imagine that a city can continue to exist and not be turned upside down, if the legal judgments which are pronounced in it have no force but are nullified and destroyed by private persons?
A man who really fights for justice must lead a private, not a public, life if he is to survive for even a short time.
The true champion of justice, if he intends to survive even for a short time, must necessarily confine himself to private life and leave politics alone.
…a good man cannot be harmed either in life or in death, and that his affairs are not neglected by the gods.
Intelligent individuals learn from every thing and every one; average people, from their experiences. The stupid already have all the answers.
To find the Father of all is hard. And when found, it is impossible to utter Him.
Such as thy words are such will thine affections be esteemed and such as thine affections will be thy deeds and such as thy deeds will be thy life …
By far the greatest and most admirable form of wisdom is that needed to plan and beautify cities and human communities.
No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew it was the greatest of evils.
The greatest way to live with honour in this world is to be what we pretend to be.
He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.
One who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice; and it is not right to return an injury, or to do evil to any man, however much we have suffered from him.
You are wrong sir, if you think that a man who is any good at all should take into account the risk of life or death; he should look to this only in his actions, whether what he does is right or wrong.
If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be content to take their own and depart.
When you want wisdom and insight as badly as you want to breathe, it is then you shall have it.
I am a citizen not of Athens or Greece but of the world.
If all misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion most people would be contented to take their own and depart.
Be slow to fall into friendship but when thou art in continue firm and constant.
Be slow to fall into friendship but when thou art in continue firm and constant.
What most counts is not to live but to live aright.
No man undertakes a trade he has not learned even the meanest yet every one thinks himself sufficiently qualified for the hardest of all trades – that of government.
Living well and beautifully and justly are all one thing.
I am not an Athenian nor a Greek but a citizen of the world.
He is not only idle who does nothing but he is idle who might be better employed.
Four things belong to a judge: to hear courteously to answer wisely to consider soberly and to decide impartially.
Nobody is qualified to become a statesman who is entirely ignorant of the problems of wheat.
Our prayers should be for blessings in general for God knows best what is good for us.
Our prayers should be for blessings in general for God knows best what is good for us.
If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion most people would be content to take their own and depart.
If all misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion most people would be contented to take their own and depart.
The fewer our wants the nearer we resemble the gods.
You think that upon the score of fore-knowledge and divining I am infinitely inferior to the swans. When they perceive approaching death they sing more merrily than before because of the joy they have in going to the God they serve.
Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents gobble their food and tyrannize their teachers.
If a man would move the world he must first move himself.
Our prayers should be for blessings in general, for God knows best what is good for us.
Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death.
Employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.
By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.
I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm then they might have an unlimited power for doing good.
The end of life is to be like God, and the soul following God will be like Him.
Where there is reverence there is fear, but there is not reverence everywhere that there is fear, because fear presumably has a wider extension than reverence.
He is a man of courage who does not run away, but remains at his post and fights against the enemy.
The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.
As to marriage or celibacy, let a man take which course he will, he will be sure to repent.
Beauty is the bait which with delight allures man to enlarge his kind.
Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm and constant.
True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.
I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled poets to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.
All men’s souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine.