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

"No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable."

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

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

"Be slow to fall into friendship, but when you are in, continue firm and constant."

"The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance."

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

"From the deepest desires often comes the deadliest hate."

"I examined the poets, and I look on them as people whose talent overawes both themselves and others, people who present themselves as wise men and are taken as such, when they are nothing of the sort. From poets, I moved to artists. No one was more ignorant about the arts than I; no one was more convinced that artists possessed really beautiful secrets. However, I noticed that their condition was no better than that of the poets and that both of them have the same misconceptions. Because the most skillful among them excel in their specialty, they look upon themselves as the wisest of men. In my eyes, this presumption completely tarnished their knowledge. As a result, putting myself in the place of the oracle and asking myself what I would prefer to be — what I was or what they were, to know what they have learned or to know that I know nothing — I replied to myself and to the god: I wish to remain who I am."

"And therefore if the head and the body are to be well, you must begin by curing the soul; that is the first and essential thing. And the care of the soul, my dear youth, has to be effected by the use of certain charms, and these charms are fair words; and by them temperance is implanted in the soul, and where temperance comes and stays, there health is speedily imparted, not only to the head, but to the whole body."

"Is it true; is it kind, or is it necessary?"

"Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior."

"In all of us, even in good men, there is a lawless wild-beast nature, which peers out in sleep."

"Human nature will not easily find a better helper than Eros."

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."

"Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity."

"Beloved Pan and all other gods, who haunt this place, give me beauty in the inward soul, and may the outward and the inner man be at one."

"To find yourself, think for yourself."

"The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms."

"Sometimes you put walls up not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to break them down."