"I soon realized that poets do not compose their poems with knowledge, but by some inborn talent and by inspiration, like seers and prophets who also say many fine things without any understanding of what they say."

"An unconsidered life is not one worth living."

"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."

"How many things can I do without?"

"Beloved Pan and all other gods, who haunt this place, give me beauty in the inward soul, and may the outward and the inner man be at one."

"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?"

"Envy is the ulcer of the soul."

"Be as you wish to seem."

"Do not trouble about those who practice philosophy, whether they are good or bad; but examine the thing itself well and carefully. And if philosophy appears a bad thing to you, turn every man from it, not only your sons; but if it appears to you such as I think it to be, take courage, pursue it, and practice it, as the saying is, 'both you and your house."

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

"Understanding a question is half an answer."

"I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm; then they might have an unlimited power for doing good."

"All I know is that I know nothing."

"To find yourself, think for yourself."

"Is it true; is it kind, or is it necessary?"

"Let him who would move the world first move himself."

"For the fear of death is indeed the pretense of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being a pretense of knowing the unknown; and no one know whether death, which men in their fear apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good. Is not this ignorance of a disgraceful sort, the ignorance which is the conceit that a man knows that he does not know? And in this respect only I believe myself to differ from men in general, and may perhaps claim to be wiser than they are: that whereas I know but little of the world below, I do not suppose that I know..."

"Esteemed friend, citizen of Athens, the greatest city in the world, so outstanding in both intelligence and power, aren't you ashamed to care so much to make all the money you can, and to advance your reputation and prestige--while for truth and wisdom and the improvement of your soul you have no care or worry?"

"One should eat to live; not live to eat."

"He is not only idle who does nothing, but he is idle who might be better employed."