Socrates

The unexamined life is not worth living.

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.

The soul is pure when it leaves the body and drags nothing bodily with it, by virtue of having no willing association with the body in life but avoiding it… Practicing philosophy in the right way is a training to die easily.

I was afraid that by observing objects with my eyes and trying to comprehend them with each of my other senses I might blind my soul altogether.

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

Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?

Poets wish to profit or to please.

There is nothing so unthinkable as thought, unless it be the entire absence of thought.

In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior.

These are not dark days: these are great days – the greatest days our country has ever lived.

And when a woman’s will is as strong as the man’s who wants to govern her, half her strength must be concealment.

I like not only to be loved, but also to be told that I am loved. I am not sure that you are of the same kind. But the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave. This is the world of light and speech, and I shall take leave to tell you that you are very dear.

Out of intense complexities intense simplicities emerge.

We mustn’t be stiff and stand-off, you know. We must be thoroughly democratic, and patronize everybody without distinction of class.

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, make them.

Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labors, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it.

Does he council you better who bids you, Money, by right means, if you can: but by any means, make money?

Zeal ever follows an appearance of truth, and the assured are too apt to be warm; but it is their weak side in argument; zeal being better shown against sin than persons, or their mistakes.

Certainly virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed, or crushed: for prosperity does best discover vice, but adversity does best discover virtue.

We hand folks over to God’s mercy, and show none ourselves.

Depriving the oppressed of a beacon of hope could lose us the world we have built and thrived in. It could cost our reputation in history as the nation distinct from all others in our achievements, our identity, and our enduring influence on mankind. Our values are central to all three.