Socrates

They are not only idle who do nothing, but they are idle also who might be better employed.

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.

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

Fame is the perfume of heroic deeds.

To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.

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

The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.

The only failure a man ought to fear is failure in cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best.

Every other enjoyment malice may destroy; every other panegyric envy may withhold; but no human power can deprive the boaster of his own encomiums.

A man finds room in the few square inches of the face for the traits of all his ancestors; for the expression of all his history, and his wants.

I look up at the universe and ask, ‘What are you trying to teach me here?’ I know I won’t hear a reply, but asking the question, makes me begin looking for the answer.

This ain’t fun. But you watch me, I’ll get it done.

If a diplomat says yes, he means perhaps. If he says perhaps he means no. And if he says no, he’s the hell of a diplomat.

Never read any book that is not a year old.

Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.

To say that a man is your Friend, means commonly no more than this, that he is not your enemy. Most contemplate only what would be the accidental and trifling advantages of Friendship, as that the Friend can assist in time of need by his substance, or his influence, or his counsel. Even the utmost goodwill and harmony and practical kindness are not sufficient for Friendship, for Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody.

However intense my experience, I am conscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me, which, as it were, is not a part of me, but a spectator, sharing no experience, but taking note of it, and that is no more I than it is you. When the play, it may be the tragedy, of life is over, the spectator goes his way. It was a kind of fiction, a work of the imagination only, so far as he was concerned.

When you have told anyone you have left him a legacy the only decent thing to do is to die at once.

For character too is a process and an unfolding… among our valued friends is there not someone or other who is a little too self confident and disdainful; whose distinguished mind is a little spotted with commonness; who is a little pinched here and protuberant there with native prejudices; or whose better energies are liable to lapse down the wrong channel under the influence of transient solicitations?

Justice is my being allowed to do whatever I like. Injustice is whatever prevents my doing so.

Statistics show that of those who contract the habit of eating, very few survive.