"My advice to you is getting married: if you find a good wife you'll be happy; if not, you'll become a philosopher."

"How can you wonder your travels do you no good, when you carry yourself around with you?"

"The law presumably says that it is finest to keep as quiet as possible in misfortunes and not be irritated, since the good and bad in such things aren't plain, nor does taking it hard get one anywhere, not are any of the human things worthy of great seriousness.... One must accept the fall of the dice and settle one's affairs accordingly-- in whatever way argument declares would be best. One must not behave like children who have stumbled and who hold on to the hurt place and spend their time in crying out; rather one must always habituate the soul to turn as quickly as possible to curing and setting aright what has fallen and is sick, doing away with lament by medicine."

"No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable."

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

"Beauty is a short-lived tyranny"

"Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions; but those who kindly reprove thy faults."

"Is there anyone to whom you entrust a greater number of serious matters than your wife? And is there anyone with whom you have fewer conversations?"

"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."