Socrates

A system of morality that is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception that has nothing sound in it and nothing true.

The poets are only the interpreters of the gods.

I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know.

The unexamined life is not worth living.

When I was young, I believed that life might unfold in an orderly way, according to my hopes and expectations. But now I understand that the Way winds like a river, always changing, ever onward.. My journeys revealed that the Way itself creates the warrior; that every path leads to peace, every choice to wisdom. And that life has always been, and will always be, arising in Mystery.

Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued." "It is not living that matters, but living rightly. The unexamined life is not worth living.

The hour of departure has arrived and we go our ways; I to die, and you to live. Which is better? Only God knows.

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

My divine sign indicates the future to me.

If you will take my advice you will think little of Socrates, and a great deal more of truth.

When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.

The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world, is to be in reality what we would appear to be, all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice and experience of them.

I call myself a Peaceful Warrior... because the battles we fight are on the inside.

Are you not ashamed of heaping up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation, and caring so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul?

The misuse of language induces evil in the soul.

There is no possession more valuable than a good and faithful friend.

If a man comes to the door of poetry untouched by the madness of the Muses, believing that technique alone will make him a good poet, he and his sane compositions never reach perfection, but are utterly eclipsed by the performances of the inspired madman.

Admitting one's ignorance is the first step in acquiring knowledge.

True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.

Nobody is qualified to become a statesman who is entirely ignorant of the problem of wheat.

Let him that would move the world first move himself.