Socrates

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?

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.

Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions, but those who kindly reprove thy faults.

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

Beware the barrenness of a busy life.

Life contains but two tragedies. One is not to get your heart’s desire; the other is to get it.

Life consists in what a person is thinking of all day.

Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.

A man never tells you anything until you contradict him.

A graceful and pleasing figure is a perpetual letter of recommendation.

Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood or appreciated.

All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.

It is better to live rich than to die rich.

This report, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read.

Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.

Be humble. It becomes a creature, a depending and borrowed being, that lives not of itself, but breathes in another’s air with another’s breath, and is accountable for every moment of time and can call nothing its own, but is absolutely a tenant at will of the great Lord of heaven and earth.

Be yourself. Follow your instincts. Success depends, at least in part, on the ability to carry it off.

Men are what their mothers made them.

The advice that is wanted is commonly not welcome and that which is not wanted, evidently an effrontery.

The human soul, by once suffering as much as it is capable of, purchases a strange and terrible immunity to all the rest of life’s sorrows.

I mean why should somebody go steal and break the law to get all they can when there’s always some law where you can be legal and get it all anyway!