"Nobody is qualified to become a statesman who is entirely ignorant of the problem of wheat."

"The great honor in the world is to be what we pretend to be."

"We cannot live better than in seeking to become better."

"We approach truth only inasmuch as we depart from life. For what do we, who love truth, strive after in life? To free ourselves from the body, and from all the evil that is caused by the life of the body! If so, then how can we fail to be glad when death comes to us? The wise man seeks death all his life and therefore death is not terrible to him."

"To be is to do."

"Every action has its pleasures and its price."

"Be nicer than necessary to everyone you meet. Everyone is fighting some kind of battle."

"And now we go, you to your lives, and I to death, and which of us goes to the better only God knows."

"Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued."

"Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers."

"How many things can I do without?"

"Now the hour to part has come. I go to die, you go to live. Which of us goes to the better lot is known to no one, except the god."

"Wealth does not bring about excellence, but excellence makes wealth and everything else good for men, both individually and collectively."

"Be nicer than necessary to everyone you meet. Everyone is fighting some kind of battle."

"I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy, exhorting anyone whom I meet after my manner, and convincing him, saying: O my friend, why do you who are a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of Athens, care so much about laying up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation, and so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all? Are you not ashamed of this?"

"An unconsidered life is not one worth living."

"Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity."

"He who is not contended with what he has would not be contended with what he would like to have."

"Those who are hardest to love need it the most."

"The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our separate ways, me to die, and you to live. Which of these two is better? Only God knows."