Socrates

Beware the barrenness of a busy life.

From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.

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

No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.

Nature has given us two ears, two eyes, and but one tongue-to the end that we should hear and see more than we speak.

Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.

It is the nature of babies to be in bliss.

Make yourself necessary to somebody.

The one who prosperity takes too much delight in will be the most shocked by reverses.

Let us my friends snatch our opportunity from the passing day.

However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are the richest.

Fame must have enemies, as light must have gnats.

The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough.

Honor bespeaks worth. Confidence begets trust. Service brings satisfaction. Cooperation proves the quality of leadership.

Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.

Dear to us are those who love us… but dearer are those who reject us as unworthy, for they add another life; they build a heaven before us whereof we had not dreamed, and thereby supply to us new powers out of the recesses of the spirit, and urge us to new and unattempted performances.

Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly.

There are thousands hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.

Excellence in any department can be attained only by the labor of a lifetime; it is not to be purchased at a lesser price.

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.

I was exceedingly delighted with the waltz, and also with the polka. These differ in name, but there the difference ceases