Socrates

An honest man is always a child.

Wars and revolutions and battles are due simply and solely to the body and its desires. All wars are undertaken for the acquisition of wealth; and the reason why we have to acquire wealth is the body, because we are slaves in its service.

Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death.

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

Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.

Employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for.

Leisure may be defined as free activity, labor as compulsory activity. Leisure does what it likes, labor does what it must, the compulsion being that of Nature, which in these latitudes leaves men no choice between labor and starvation.

Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.

There is no such whetstone, to sharpen a good wit and encourage a will to learning, as is praise.

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

Every thought which genius and piety throw into the world alters the world.

The best efforts of a fine person is felt after we have left their presence.

Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.

Our words have wings, but fly not where we would.

And Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values, like you work hard for what you want in life. That your word is your bond; that you do what you say you’re going to do. That you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don’t know them and even if you don’t agree with them.

It is better that some should be unhappy rather than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.

Just write every day of your life. Read intensely. Then see what happens. Most of my friends who are put on that diet have very pleasant careers.

I’m just preparing my impromptu remarks.

Wisdom is like electricity. There is no permanently wise man, but men capable of wisdom, who, being put into certain company, or other favorable conditions, become wise for a short time, as glasses rubbed acquire electric power for a while.

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

Commerce is a game of skill which everyone cannot play and few can play well.