Socrates

Has a philosopher like you failed to discover that our country is more to be valued and higher and holier far than mother or father or any ancestor, and more to be regarded in the eyes of the gods and of men of understanding?

Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.

I only wish that wisdom were the kind of thing that flowed ... from the vessel that was full to the one that was empty.

In every one of us there are two ruling and directing principles, whose guidance we follow wherever they may lead; the one being an innate desire of pleasure; the other, an acquired judgment which aspires after excellence.

Each of these private teachers who work for pay ... inculcates nothing else than these opinions of the multitude which they opine when they are assembled and calls this knowledge wisdom.

Anyone who holds a true opinion without understanding is like a blind man on the right road.

One should never do wrong in return, nor mistreat any man, no matter how one has been mistreated by him.

Oh dear Pan and all the other gods of this place, grant that I may be beautiful inside. Let all my external possessions be in friendly harmony with what is within. May I consider the wise man rich. As for gold, let me have as much as a moderate man could bear and carry with him.

How singular is the thing called pleasure, and how curiously related to pain, which might be thought to be the opposite of it; for they never come to a man together, and yet he who pursues either of them is generally compelled to take the other. They are two, and yet they grow together out of one head or stem.

It would be better for me... that multitudes of men should disagree with me rather than that I, being one, should be out of harmony with myself.