Socrates

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

The nearest way to glory a shortcut, as it were is to strive to be what you wish to be thought to be.

To fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise, without being wise: for it is to think that we know what we do not know. For anything that men can tell, death may be the greatest good that can happen to them: but they fear it as if they knew quite well that it was the greatest of evils. And what is this but that shameful ignorance of thinking that we know what we do not know?

Since all of us desire to be happy, and since we evidently become so on account of our use—that is our good use—of other things, and since knowledge is what provides this goodness of use and also good fortune, every man must, as seems plausible, prepare himself by every means for this: to be as wise as possible. Right?

Every action has its pleasures and its price.

Remember what is unbecoming to do is also unbecoming to speak of.

When you want wisdom and insight as badly as you want to breathe, it is then you shall have it.

Do not be angry with me if I tell you the truth

If you would seek health, look first to the spine.

An unexamined life is a life of no account.

The perfect human being is all human beings put together, it is a collective, it is all of us together that make perfection.

Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.

Wars and revolutions and battles are due simply and solely to the body and its desires.

Our prayers should be for blessings in general, for God knows best what is good for us.

Nothing is to be preferred before justice.

I know you won't believe me, but the highest form of Human Excellence is to question oneself and others.

A man should inure himself to voluntary labor, and not give up to indulgence and pleasure, as they beget no good constitution of body nor knowledge of mind.

In my investigation in the service of the god I found that those who had the highest reputation were nearly the most deficient, while those who were thought to be inferior were more knowledgeable.

No citizen has a right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training... what a disgrace it is for a man to grow old without ever seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.

We can do nothing without the body, let us always take care that it is in the best condition to sustain us.

And the same things look bent and straight when seen in water and out of it, and also both concave and convex, due to the sight's being mislead by the colors, and every sort of confusion of this kind is plainly in our soul. And, then, it is because they take advantage of this affection in our nature that shadow painting, and puppeteering, and many other tricks of the kind fall nothing short of wizardry.