"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 ... and that is a good thing for any man."

"An unconsidered life is not one worth living."

"I did not care for the things that most people care about– making money, having a comfortable home, high military or civil rank, and all the other activities, political appointments, secret societies, party organizations, which go on in our city . . . I set myself to do you– each one of you, individually and in private– what I hold to be the greatest possible service. I tried to persuade each one of you to concern himself less with what he has than with what he is, so as to render himself as excellent and as rational as possible."

"The really important thing is not to live, but to live well. And to live well meant, along with more enjoyable things in life, to live according to your principles."

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

"The mind is everything; what you think you become."

"As for me, all I know is that I know nothing, for when I don't know what justice is, I'll hardly know whether it is a kind of virtue or not, or whether a person who has it is happy or unhappy."

"He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature."

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

"One who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice; and it is not right to return an injury, or to do evil to any man, however much we have suffered from him."

"And a thing is not seen because it is visible, but; conversely, visible because it is seen; nor is a thing led because; it is in the state of being led, or carried because it is in the; state of being carried, but the converse of this. And now I think, Euthyphro, that my meaning will be intelligible; and my; meaning is, that any state of action or passion implies previous; action or passion. It does not become because it is becoming, but it is in a state of becoming because it becomes; neither; does it suffer because it is in a state of suffering, but it is in a; state of suffering because it suffers. Do you not agree?"

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

"All I know is that I know nothing."

"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. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is law and no amount of pretending will alter that reality."

"I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your persons or your properties, but and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul. I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue comes money and every other good of man..."

"We approach truth only inasmuch as we depart from life. For what do we, who love truth, strive after in life? To free ourselves from the body, and from all the evil that is caused by the life of the body! If so, then how can we fail to be glad when death comes to us? The wise man seeks death all his life and therefore death is not terrible to him."

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

"My plainness of speech makes them hate me, and what is their hatred but a proof that I am speaking the truth."

"The hottest love has the coldest end."

"Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued."