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.
Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.
Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.
Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.
I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.
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.
There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.
I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.
Beware the barrenness of a busy life.
I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.
Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.
Do not do to others what angers you if done to you by others.
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.
Remember, no human condition is ever permanent. Then you will not be overjoyed in good fortune nor too scornful in misfortune.
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?"
Envy is the ulcer of the soul.
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.
Having the fewest wants, I am nearest to the gods.
If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it.
I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.
Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions; but those who kindly reprove thy faults.
In every one of us there are two ruling and directing principles, whose guidance we follow wherever they may lead; the one being an innate desire of pleasure; the other, an acquired judgment which aspires after excellence.
