"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."

"Living well and beautifully and justly are all one thing."

"I neither know nor think that I know."

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

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."

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

"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."

"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 did not care for the things that most people care about– making money, having a comfortable home, high military or civil rank, and all the other activities, political appointments, secret societies, party organizations, which go on in our city . . . I set myself to do you– each one of you, individually and in private– what I hold to be the greatest possible service. I tried to persuade each one of you to concern himself less with what he has than with what he is, so as to render himself as excellent and as rational as possible."

"The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance."

"If you don't get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don't want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can't hold on to it forever. Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is law and no amount of pretending will alter that reality."

"I desire only to know the truth and to live as well as I can... And, to the utmost of my power, I exhort all other men to do the same... I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict."

"All men's souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine."

"Life contains but two tragedies. One is not to get your heart's desire; the other is to get it."

"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."

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

"He is rich who is content with the least; for contentment is the wealth of nature."

"Every action has its pleasures and its price."

"I honor and love you: but why do you who are citizens of the great and mighty nation care so much about laying up the greatest amount of money and honor And reputation, and so little amount wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul? Re you not ashamed of these?... I do nothing but go about persuading you all, not to take thought for your persons and your properties, but first and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul. I tell you that virtue is not given by more, but that from virtue comes money and every other good of man."

"Beware the barrenness of a busy life."