I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.

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

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.

False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.

Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.

If all misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart.

Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior.

He is a man of courage who does not run away, but remains at his post and fights against the enemy.

The poets are only the interpreters of the Gods.

As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.

Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.

The unexamined life is not worth living.

The end of life is to be like God, and the soul following God will be like Him.

Let him that would move the world first move himself.

To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.

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

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

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

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

True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.

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

Where there is reverence there is fear, but there is not reverence everywhere that there is fear, because fear presumably has a wider extension than reverence.

As to marriage or celibacy, let a man take which course he will, he will be sure to repent.

If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it.

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

Beware the barrenness of a busy life.

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

All men’s souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine.

From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.

The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.

A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.

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.

Beauty is the bait which with delight allures man to enlarge his kind.

Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm and constant.

I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.

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.

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

Wisdom begins in wonder.

By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.

Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.

I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled poets to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.

An honest man is always a child.

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

It is not living that matters, but living rightly.

Be as you wish to seem.

I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.