Ancient Greek Philosophers

Thinking is a sacred disease and sight is deceptive.

—Heraclitus

True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, & the world around us.

—Socrates

I wander about in unending perplexity…

—Socrates

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

—Socrates

Wise men speak because they have something to say.

Fools because they have to say something.

—Plato

We make war that we may live in peace.

—Aristotle

Time crumbles things; everything grows old under the power of Time and is forgotten through the lapse of Time.

—Aristotle

I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict.

—Plato

Better a little which is well done, than a great deal imperfectly.

—Plato

Mankind will never see an end of trouble until lovers of wisdom come to hold political power, or the holders of power become lovers of wisdom.

—Plato

Wisdom is the oneness of mind that guides and permeates all things.

—Heraclitus

He is his own best friend and takes delight in privacy whereas the man of no virtue or ability is his own worst enemy and is afraid of solitude.

—Aristotle

The high-minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think.

—Aristotle

Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul.

—Plato

All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.

—Aristotle

As the builders say, the larger stones do not lie well without the lesser.

—Plato

I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing

—Socrates

All things come into being by conflict of opposites.

—Heraclitus

Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.

—Aristotle

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

There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help, and what they cannot.

—Plato

Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find way around the laws.

—Plato

Abundance of knowledge does not teach men to be wise.

—Heraclitus

Through discipline comes freedom.

—Aristotle

The unlike is joined together, and from differences results the most beautiful harmony.

—Heraclitus

Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.

—Plato

True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.

—Socrates

No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew it was the greatest of evils.

—Socrates

Love is the joy of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the Gods!

—Plato

No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.

—Aristotle