"Do you feel no compunction, Socrates, at having followed a line of action which puts you in danger of the death penalty?' I might fairly reply to him, 'You are mistaken, my friend, if you think that a man who is worth anything ought to spend his time weighing up the prospects of life and death. He has only one thing to consider in performing any action--that is, whether he is acting rightly or wrongly, like a good man or a bad one."

"My friend...care for your psyche...know thyself, for once we know ourselves, we may learn how to care for ourselves"

"Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for."

"Envy is the ulcer of the soul."

"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."

"Be as you wish to seem."

"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."

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

"How many things can I do without?"

"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?"

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

"In all of us, even in good men, there is a lawless wild-beast nature, which peers out in sleep."

"He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature."

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

"From the deepest desires often comes the deadliest hate."

"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."

"If you want to be a good saddler, saddle the worst horse; for if you can tame one, you can tame all."

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