Ancient Greek Philosophers

Those who are confident without knowledge are not courageous, but mad.

—Socrates

Justice in the life and conduct of the State is possible only as first it resides in the hearts and souls of the citizens.

—Plato

To love rightly is to love what is orderly and beautiful in an educated and disciplined way.

—Plato

How much there is in the world I do not want.

—Socrates

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

—Socrates

My advice to you is get married: if you find a good wife you’ll be happy; if not, you’ll become a philosopher.

—Socrates

Employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings so that you shall come easily by what others have laboured hard for.

—Socrates

The greatest wealth is to live content with little.

—Plato

No man undertakes a trade he has not learned, even the meanest; yet everyone thinks himself sufficiently qualified for the hardest of all trades, that of government.

—Socrates

Nothing is to be preferred before justice.

—Socrates

The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms.

—Socrates

Be of good hope in the face of death. Believe in this one truth for certain, that no evil can befall a good man either in life or death, and that his fate is not a matter of indifference to the gods.

—Socrates

I was afraid that by observing objects with my eyes and trying to comprehend them with each of my other senses I might blind my soul altogether.

—Socrates

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

—Socrates

I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.

—Socrates

To find yourself, think for yourself.

—Socrates

Thou should eat to live; not live to eat.

—Socrates

Prefer knowledge to wealth, for the one is transitory, the other perpetual.

—Socrates

Only the extremely ignorant or the extremely intelligent can resist change.

—Socrates

The value of a man is measured in the number of those who stand beside him, not those who follow.

—Socrates

I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm; then they might have an unlimited power for doing good.

—Socrates

My friend…care for your psyche…know thyself, for once we know ourselves, we may learn how to care for ourselves

—Socrates

The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.

—Socrates

Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death.

—Socrates

If you don’t get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don’t want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can’t hold on to it forever.

Your mind is your predicament.

—Socrates

The unexamined life is not worth living.

—Socrates

Remember what is unbecoming to do is also unbecoming to speak of.

—Socrates

Would you have ever learned or discovered anything, if you had not been willing to learn from others?

—Socrates

Our prayers should be for blessings in general, for God knows best what is good for us.

—Socrates

The soul is pure when it leaves the body and drags nothing bodily with it, by virtue of having no willing association with the body in life but avoiding it…..Practicing philosophy in the right way is a training to die easily.

—Socrates