Socrates

We are in fact convinced that if we are ever to have pure knowledge of anything, we must get rid of the body and contemplate things by themselves with the soul by itself. It seems, to judge from the argument, that the wisdom which we desire and upon which we profess to have set our hearts will be attainable only when we are dead and not in our lifetime.

No citizen has any right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training; it is part of his profession as a citizen to keep himself in good condition... [It is] a disgrace for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and the strength of which his body is capable.

The understanding of mathematics is necessary for a sound grasp of ethics.

My belief is that to have no wants is divine.

True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing. And in knowing that you know nothing, that makes you the smartest of all.

Living well and beautifully and justly are all one thing.

I have not sought during my life to amass wealth and to adorn my body, but I have sought to adorn my soul with the jewels of wisdom, patience, and above all with a love of liberty.

What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?

Understanding a question is half an answer.

I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.

The years wrinkle our skin, but lack of enthusiasm wrinkles our soul.

So you would rather suffer an injustice than do an injustice?

Virtue does not come from wealth, but wealth, and every other good thing which men have comes from virtue.

No man undertakes a trade he has not learned, even the meanest; yet everyone thinks himself sufficiently qualified for the hardest of all trades, that of government.

Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful, or of him who is ill-educated ungraceful.

If I tell you that I would be disobeying the god and on that account it is impossible for me to keep quiet, you won't be persuaded by me, taking it that I am ionizing. And if I tell you that it is the greatest good for a human being to have discussions every day about virtue and the other things you hear me talking about, examining myself and others, and that the unexamined life is not livable for a human being, you will be even less persuaded.

Give me beauty in the inward soul; and may the outward and inward may be one.

I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.

See one promontory, one mountain, one sea, one river and see all.

The envious person grows lean with the fatness of their neighbor.

It is never right to do wrong or to requite wrong with wrong, or when we suffer evil to defend ourselves by doing evil in return.