Greek
Philosopher
(469 BC -
399 BC)
"Beware the barrenness of a busy life."
"Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty."
"False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil."
"The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be."
"He is richest who is content with the least."
"He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have."
"I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think."
"Know thyself."
"Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued."
"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 knew 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?"
"To find yourself, think for yourself."
"An unexamined life is not worth living."
"Virtue does not come from wealth, but. . . wealth, and every other good thing which men have. . . comes from virtue."
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is a habit."
"What you cannot enforce, do not command. "
"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."
"Wisdom begins in wonder."
