Ancient Greek Philosophers

Quotes from Heraclitus, Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Sophocles.

Ancient Greek Philosophers' Quotes

“Without labor nothing prospers.” — Sophocles

Wars and revolutions and battles are due simply and solely to the body and its desires.

All wars are undertaken for the acquisition of wealth; and the reason why we have to acquire wealth is the body, because we are slaves in its service.

—Socrates

The soul takes nothing with her to the next world but her education and her culture.

At the beginning of the journey to the next world, one’s education and culture can either provide the greatest assistance, or else act as the greatest burden, to the person who has just died.

—Plato

According to Greek mythology, humans were originally created with four arms, four legs and a head with two faces.

Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves.

—Plato

Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives – choice, not chance, determines your destiny.

—Aristotle

In order for man to succeed in life, God provided him with two means, education and physical activity.

Not separately, one for the soul and the other for the body, but for the two together.

With these means, man can attain perfection.

—Plato

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.

—Aristotle

“Without labor nothing prospers.”

— Sophocles

Thinking: the talking of the soul with itself.

—Plato

They are not only idle who do nothing, but they are idle also who might be better employed.

—Socrates

Having the fewest wants, I am nearest to the gods.

—Socrates

And what, Socrates, is the food of the soul?

Surely, I said, knowledge is the food of the soul.

—Plato

Happiness is unrepentant pleasure.

—Socrates

The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.

—Socrates

Life contains but two tragedies. One is not to get your heart’s desire; the other is to get it.

—Socrates

Those who are hardest to love, need it the most.

—Socrates

The mind is everything; what you think you become.

—Socrates

An unexamined life is not worth living.

—Socrates

The secret to happiness, you see, is not in gaining more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.

—Socrates

Be the kind of person that you want people to think you are.

—Socrates

Writing is the geometry of the soul.

—Plato

Allow yourself to think only those thoughts that match your principles and can bear the bright light of day. Day by day, your choices, your thoughts, your actions fashion the person you become. Your integrity determines your destiny.

—Heraclitus

Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people.

—Socrates

Every action has its pleasures and its prices.

—Socrates

Through your rags I see your vanity.

—Socrates

Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty.

—Socrates

The envious person grows lean with the fatness of their neighbor.

—Socrates

Man’s character is his fate.

—Heraclitus

False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.

—Plato

Don’t force your children into your ways, for they were created for a time different from your own.

—Plato