"As to marriage or celibacy, let a man take which course he will, he will be sure to repent."

"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."

"Neither in war nor yet at law ought any man to use every way of escaping death. For often in battle there is no doubt that if a man will throw away his arms, and fall on his knees before his pursuers, he may escape death; and in other dangers there are other ways of escaping death, if a man is willing to say and do anything. The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death."

"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."

"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."

"Children nowadays are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers."

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

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

"The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms."

"To find yourself, think for yourself."

"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light."

"All I know is that I know nothing."

"The really important thing is not to live, but to live well. And to live well meant, along with more enjoyable things in life, to live according to your principles."

"And in knowing that you know nothing makes you the smartest of all."

"Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel."

"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..."