"The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways - I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows."
"Thou shouldst eat to live; not live to eat."
"Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions; but those who kindly reprove thy faults."
"Having the fewest wants, I am nearest to the gods."
"Regard your good name as the richest jewel you can possibly be possessed of - for credit is like fire; when once you have kindled it you may easily preserve it, but if you once extinguish it, you will find it an arduous task to rekindle it again ..."
"The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world, is to be in reality what we would appear to be; and if we observe, we shall find, that all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice of them."
"Remember what is unbecoming to do is also unbecoming to speak of."
"Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity."
"Get not your friends by bare compliments, but by giving them sensible tokens of your love."
"The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance."
"Envy is the ulcer of the soul."
"The unexamined life is not worth living."
"One should never do wrong in return, nor mistreat any man, no matter how one has been mistreated by him."
"Let him that would move the world first move himself."
"It is not living that matters, but living rightly."
"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."
"If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it."
"I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live."
"If you cannot persuade your country you must do whatever it orders, and patiently submit to any punishment that it imposes."
"One must not even do wrong when one is wronged, which most people regard as the natural course."
"I cannot abandon the principles which I used to hold in the past simply because this accident has happened to me; they seem to me to be much as they were, and I respect and regard the same principles now as before. So unless we can find better principles on this occasion, ..."
"I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm; then they might have an unlimited power for doing good, which would be a splendid thing, if it were so. Actually they have neither. They cannot make a man wise or stupid; they simply act at random."
"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."
"He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature."
"He is a man of courage who does not run away, but remains at his post and fights against the enemy."
"From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate."
"False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil."
"Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for."
"Death may be the greatest of all human blessings."
"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."
"Beware the barrenness of a busy life."
"Beauty is the bait which with delight allures man to enlarge his kind."
"Beauty is a short-lived tyranny."
"Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm and constant."
"Be as you wish to seem."
C
"As to marriage or celibacy, let a man take which course he will, he will be sure to repent."
"As for me, all I know is that I know nothing."
"An honest man is always a child."
"All men's souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine."