Socrates

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

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

A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.

The poets are only the interpreters of the Gods.

He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.

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

Each of us has the right and the responsibility to asses the road which lie ahead and those over which we have traveled, and if the feature road looms ominous or unpromising, and the road back uninviting-inviting, then we need to gather our resolve and carrying only the necessary baggage, step off that road into another direction. If the new choice is also unpalatable, without embarrassment, we must be ready to change that one as well.

There is, indeed, nothing that so much seduces reason from vigilance, as the thought of passing life with an amiable woman.

Men talk as if victory were something fortunate. Work is victory.

What is the use of a house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?

The hues of the opal, the light of the diamond, are not to be seen if the eye is too near.

We learn geology the morning after the earthquake.

Plan backwards as well as forward. Set objectives and trace back to see how to achieve them. You may find that no path can get you there. Plan forward to see where your steps will take you, which may not be clear or intuitive.

Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other.

He will be loved when dead, who was envied when he was living.

Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say it makes him more pleasing to others.

Aim for the moon. If you miss, you may hit a star.

Thought is the sculptor who can create the person you want to be.

How can what an Englishman believes be hearsay? It is a contradiction in terms.

I like to be beholden to the great metropolitan English speech, the sea which receives tributaries from every region under heaven.

The only reward of virtue is virtue the only way to have a friend is to be one.