I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.

As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.

If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires.

The unexamined life is not worth living.

Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.

Big results require big ambitions.

The end of life is to be like God, and the soul following God will be like Him.

Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempest.

Wisdom begins in wonder.

It is better for you to be free of fear lying upon a pallet,than to have a golden couch and a rich table and be full of trouble.

The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.

Where there is reverence there is fear, but there is not reverence everywhere that there is fear, because fear presumably has a wider extension than reverence.

You could not step twice into the same rivers; for other waters are ever flowing on to you.

He is a man of courage who does not run away, but remains at his post and fights against the enemy.

If God listened to the prayers of men, all men would quickly have perished: for they are forever praying for evil against one another.

True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.

It is possible to provide security against other ills, but as far as death is concerned, we men live in a city without walls.

True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.

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

You cannot step twice into the same river; for other waters are continually flowing in.

Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.

The greater difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests.

Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.

The time when most of you should withdraw into yourself is when you are forced to be in a crowd.

Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior.

If all misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart.

Couples are wholes and not wholes, what agrees disagrees, the concordant is discordant. From all things one and from one all things.

The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.

It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly. And it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living a pleasant life.

One who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice; and it is not right to return an injury, or to do evil...

Justice… is a kind of compact not to harm or be harmed.

Beware the barrenness of a busy life.

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

There is nothing permanent except change.

It is not living that matters, but living rightly.

The greater the difficulty, the more the glory in surmounting it.

The poets are only the interpreters of the Gods.

Of all things which wisdom provides to make life entirely happy, much the greatest is the possession of friendship.

Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.

By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.

Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony.

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.

Misfortune seldom intrudes upon the wise man; his greatest and highest interests are directed by reason throughout the course of life.

I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.

A free life cannot acquire many possessions, because this is not easy to do without servility to mobs or monarchs.

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

Let him that would move the world first move himself.

A man’s character is his guardian divinity.

Be as you wish to seem.

Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.