He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is a habit.

I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.

Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.

Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.

Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.

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.

Beware the barrenness of a busy life.

There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.

I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.

Do not do to others what angers you if done to you by others.

I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.

Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.

Envy is the ulcer of the soul.

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

The unexamined life is not worth living for a human being.

Could I climb to the highest place in Athens, I would lift my voice and proclaim, "Fellow citizens, why do you turn and scrape every stone to gather wealth, and take so little care of your children to whom one day you must relinquish it all?"

Remember, no human condition is ever permanent. Then you will not be overjoyed in good fortune nor too scornful in misfortune.

How many things I have no need of! That is what Socrates often said, according to Diogenes Laertius, when looking at a mass of things for sale.

The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be; and if we observe, we shall find, that all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice of them.