Socrates

Philebus was saying that enjoyment and pleasure and delight, and the class of feelings akin to them, are a good to every living being, whereas I contend, that not these, but wisdom and intelligence and memory, and their kindred, right opinion and true reasoning, are better and more desirable than pleasure

See one promontory, one mountain, one sea, one river and see all.

Slanderers do not hurt me because they do not hit me.

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.

I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled poets to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.

By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll be happy. If you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher… and that is a good thing for any man.

Repose and cheerfulness are the badge of the gentleman – repose in energy.

We have not so good a right to hate any as our Friend.

If a man knew anything, he would sit in a corner and be modest; but he is such an ignorant peacock, that he goes bustling up and down, and hits on extraordinary discoveries.

Most of us who turn to any subject we love remember some morning or evening hour when we got on a high stool to reach down an untried volume, or sat with parted lips listening to a new talker, or for very lack of books began to listen to the voices within, as the first traceable beginning of our love.

Today, you can decide to walk in freedom. You can choose to walk differently. You can walk as a free person, enjoying every step.

He who is not just is severe, he who is not wise is sad.

When we get to wishing a great deal for ourselves, whatever we get soon turns into mere limitation and exclusion.

Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves, but deal in our privacy with the last honesty and truth.

Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices.

A sense of humor keen enough to show a man his own absurdities will keep him from the commission of all sins, or nearly all, save those worth committing.

Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: “I’m with you kid. Let’s go.”

There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.

Excellence must be pursued, it must be wooed with all of one’s might and every bit of effort that we have each day there’s a new encounter, each week is a new challenge.

The blaze of reputation cannot be blown out, but it often dies in the socket; a very few names may be considered as perpetual lamps that shine unconsumed.

Ignorance… is a painless evil; so, I should think, is dirt, considering the merry faces that go along with it.