Socrates

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

Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.

The hour of departure has arrived and we go our ways; I to die, and you to live. Which is better? Only God knows.

By all means marry. If you get a good wife you will become happy, and if you get a bad one you will become a philosopher.

Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm and constant.

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.

All I want to do is change the world.

I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.

No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism.

Do what you know and perception is converted into character.

The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.

What I mean is you make the world less ugly just by living in it.

Switzerland is simply a large, lumpy, solid rock with a thin skin of grass stretched over it.

It’s like something shifted when I spoke to you, I can’t even put words to it. This sense of gentle peace, space, lightness, freedom. The realization that the longing I carried for so long, that pain was not about him all along. It was the yearning to return to that place from which, once upon a time, we all came.

Most people want to avoid pain, and discipline is usually painful.

Danger – if you meet it promptly and without flinching – you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!

It is the only sensual pleasure without vice.

Something made greater by ourselves and in turn that makes us greater.

If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. Don’t be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning Good morning at total strangers.

It is not he who gains the exact point in dispute who scores most in controversy – but he who has shown the better temper.