Socrates

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

By all means marry. If you get a good wife you will become happy, and if you get a bad one you will become a philosopher.

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 know 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?

Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.

Whom do I call educated? First, those who manage well the circumstances they encounter day by day. Next, those who are decent and honorable in their intercourse with all men, bearing easily and good naturedly what is offensive in others and being as agreeable and reasonable to their associates as is humanly possible to be… those who hold their pleasures always under control and are not ultimately overcome by their misfortunes… those who are not spoiled by their successes, who do not desert their true selves but hold their ground steadfastly as wise and sober — minded men.

All men’s souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine.

I answer the heroic question Death where is thy sting? It is here in my heart and mind and memories

Society always consists in the greatest part, of young and foolish persons.

I’m not a teacher: only a fellow-traveler of whom you asked the way. I pointed ahead – ahead of myself as well as you.

None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.

The most advanced nations are always those who navigate the most.

To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour.

The world is seldom what it seems; to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities.

If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die.

Count on it, if a person talks of their misfortune, there is something in it that is not disagreeable to them.

Without passion, you don’t have energy. Without energy, you have nothing.

It is the greatest of all advantages to enjoy no advantage at all.

None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.

Wear none of thine own Chains; but keep free, whilst thou art free.

We fly to beauty as an asylum from the terrors of finite nature.

Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them.