Socrates

No man undertakes a trade he has not learned, even the meanest; yet everyone thinks himself sufficiently qualified for the hardest of all trades, that of government.

An education obtained with money is worse than no education at all.

Let him that would move the world, first move himself.

I must first know myself, as the Delphian inscription says; to be curious about that which is not my concern, while I am still in ignorance of my own self, would be ridiculous. And therefore I bid farewell to all this; the common opinion is enough for me. For, as I was saying, I want to know not about this, but about myself: am I a monster more complicated and swollen with passion than the serpent Typho, or a creature of a gentler and simpler sort, to whom Nature has given a diviner and lowlier destiny?

What a lot of things there are a man can do without.

I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.

Our deeds still travel with us from afar, and what we have been makes us what we are.

Where you stand depends on where you sit.

The flowery style is not unsuitable to public speeches or addresses, which amount only to compliment. The lighter beauties are in their place when there is nothing more solid to say; but the flowery style ought to be banished from a pleading, a sermon, or a didactic work.

For who is pleased with himself.

He walked out into the cold morning asking himself this heretical question: Can you start measuring a minute at any instant you wish?

So many fail because they don’t get started – they don’t go. They don’t overcome inertia. They don’t begin.

The great advantages of simulation and dissimulation are three. First to lay asleep opposition and to surprise. For where a man’s intentions are published, it is an alarum to call up all that are against them. The second is to reserve a man’s self a fair retreat: for if a man engage himself, by a manifest declaration, he must go through, or take a fall. The third is, the better to discover the mind of another. For to him that opens himself, men will hardly show themselves adverse; but will fair let him go on, and turn their freedom of speech to freedom of thought.

He presents me with what is always an acceptable gift who brings me news of a great thought before unknown. He enriches me without impoverishing himself.

The most difficult We do not deal in facts when we are contemplating ourselves.

Be not the slave of your own past – plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep, and swim far, so you shall come back with new self-respect, with new power, and with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old.

Opening amenities are often opening inanities.

To succeed in the other trades, capacity must be shown; in the law, concealment of it will do.

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

Life grants nothing to us mortals without hard work.

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.