"To find the Father of all is hard. And when found, it is impossible to utter Him."

"How can you wonder your travels do you no good, when you carry yourself around with you?"

"As for me, all I know is that I know nothing."

"Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents gobble their food and tyrannize their teachers."

"Do you imagine that a city can continue to exist and not be turned upside down, if the legal judgments which are pronounced in it have no force but are nullified and destroyed by private persons?"

"Let him who would move the world first move himself."

"The only thing I know is that I know nothing, and i am no quite sure that i know that."

"By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher."

"You are wrong sir, if you think that a man who is any good at all should take into account the risk of life or death; he should look to this only in his actions, whether what he does is right or wrong."

"A man who preserves his integrity no real, long-lasting harm can ever come."

"To do is to be."

"It seems to me that whatever else is beautiful apart from absolute Beauty is beautiful because it partakes of that absolute Beauty, and for no other reason... [I]t is by Beauty that beautiful things are beautiful."

"What most counts is not to live but to live aright."

"Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty."

"Be true to thine own self."

"If I save my insight, I don't attend to weakness of eyesight."

"Regard your good name as the richest jewel you can possibly be possessed of -- for credit is like fire; when once you have kindled it you may easily preserve it, but if you once extinguish it, you will find it an arduous task to rekindle it again. The way to a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear."

"The poets are only the interpreters of the Gods."

"I know one thing, that I know nothing."

"To fear death, gentlemen, is no other than to think oneself wise when one is not, to think one knows what one does not know. No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew that it is the greatest of evils."

"How many things can I do without?"

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."

"All men's souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine."

"Beauty is the bait which with delight allures man to enlarge his kind."

"I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing."

"Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior."

"If a man comes to the door of poetry untouched by the madness of the Muses, believing that technique alone will make him a good poet, he and his sane compositions never reach perfection, but are utterly eclipsed by the performances of the inspired madman."

"If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be content to take their own and depart."

"Fame is the perfume of heroic deeds."

"One should never do wrong in return, nor mistreat any man, no matter how one has been mistreated by him."

"Wonder is the beginning of wisdom."

"All I know is that I do not know anything."

"Intelligent individuals learn from every thing and every one; average people, from their experiences. The stupid already have all the answers."

"For the poet is a light and winged and holy thing, and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his senses, and the mind is no longer in him: when he has not attained to this state, he is powerless and is unable to utter his oracles."

"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."

"Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live."

"As for me all I know is that I know nothing."

"If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it."

"I am not an Athenian nor a Greek but a citizen of the world."

"The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our separate ways, I to die, and you to live. Which of these two is better only God knows."

"The fewer our wants the nearer we resemble the gods."

"Are you not ashamed of caring so much for the making of money and for fame and prestige, when you neither think nor care about wisdom and truth and the improvement of your soul?"

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

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

"We cannot live better than in seeking to become better."

"Get not your friends by bare compliments, but by giving them sensible tokens of your love."

"The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise."

"The greatest blessing granted to mankind come by way of madness, which is a divine gift."

"True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing."

"If all misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart."