Socrates

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

When desire, having rejected reason and overpowered judgment which leads to right, is set in the direction of the pleasure which beauty can inspire, and when again under the influence of its kindred desires it is moved with violent motion towards the beauty of corporeal forms, it acquires a surname from this very violent motion, and is called love.

Having the fewest wants, I am nearest to the gods.

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

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?

Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?

You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.

Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.

We cannot command Nature except by obeying her.

No God and no religion can survive ridicule. No political church, no nobility, no royalty or other fraud, can face ridicule in a fair field, and live.

There is no chance, and no anarchy, in the universe. All is system and gradation. Every god is there sitting in his sphere.

You are a product of your environment. So choose the environment that will best develop you toward your objective. Analyze your life in terms of its environment. Are the things around you helping you toward success – or are they holding you back?

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, make them.

What is so great as friendship, let us carry with what grandeur of spirit we can. Let us be silent, — so we may hear the whisper of the gods. Let us not interfere. Who set you to cast about what you should say to the select souls, or how to say any thing to such? No matter how ingenious, no matter how graceful and bland. There are innumerable degrees of folly and wisdom, and for you to say aught is to be frivolous. Wait, and thy heart shall speak. Wait until the necessary and everlasting overpowers you, until day and night avail themselves of your lips. The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one.

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

A little learning is a dangerous thing, but we must take that risk because a little is as much as our biggest heads can hold.

Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.

Columbus discovered no isle or key so lonely as himself.

In the end, people will judge you anyway, so don’t live our life impressing other – live your life impressing yourself.

Every mind must make its choice between truth and repose. It cannot have both.

I pay the schoolmaster, but it is the school boys who educate my son.