WednesdayJan 07, 2026
Quotes: 53419 Authors: 9969
When the mind is thinking, it is talking to itself.
You cannot conceive the many without the one.
Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.
You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.
Philosophy is the highest music.
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.
Life must be lived as play.
As empty vessels make the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest blabbers.
Well, my art of midwifery is in most respects like theirs; but differs, in that I attend men and not women, and I look after their souls when they are in labor, and not after their bodies: and the triumph of my art is in thoroughly examining whether the thought which the mind of the young man brings forth is a false idol or a noble and true birth.
Arguments derived from probabilities are idle.
Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable, inasmuch as he has the fountain of reason in him not yet regulated.
... Then anyone who leaves behind him a written manual, and likewise anyone who receives it, in the belief that such writing will be clear and certain, must be exceedingly simple-minded....
The wisest have the most authority.
Whence comes war and fighting, and factions? Whence but from the body and the lust of the body? Wars are occasioned by the love of money, and money has to be acquired for the same and service of the body.
All wars are fought for the sake of getting money.
The life which is unexamined is not worth living.
A tyrant ... is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.
They deem him their worst enemy who tells them the truth.
The true lover of learning then must his earliest youth, as far as in him lies, desire all truth.... He whose desires are drawn toward knowledge in every form will be absorbed in the pleasures of the soul, and will hardly feel bodily pleasures I mean, if he be a true philosopher and not a sham one ... Then how can he who has the magnificence of mind and is the spectator of all times and all existence, think much of human life? He cannot. Or can such a one account death fearful? No indeed.
To do injustice is more disgraceful than to suffer it.
The partisan, when he is engaged in a dispute, cares nothing about the rights of the question, but is anxious only to convince his hearers of his own assertions.
When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income.
Man is a prisoner who has no right to open the door of his prison and run away.... A man should wait, and not take his own life until God summons hiom.
The noblest of all studies is the study of what man is and of what life he should live.
The ludicrous state of solid geometry made me pass over this branch.
The man who makes everything that leads to happiness depend upon himself, and not upon other men, has adopted the very best plan for living happily. This is the man of moderation, the man of manly character and of wisdom.
The first and best victory is to conquer self; to be conquered by self is, of all things, the most shameful and vile.
Science is nothing but perception.
When men speak ill of you, live so as nobody may believe them.
It is as expedient that a wicked man be punished as that a sick man be cured by a physician; for all chastisement is a kind of medicine.
Lord of Lords, grant us the good whether we pray for it or not, but evil keep from us, even though we pray for it.
The productions of all arts are kinds of poetry and their craftsmen are all poets.
What a poor appearance the tales of poets make when stripped of the colours which music puts upon them, and recited in simple prose.
The passionate are like men standing on their heads; they see all things the wrong way.
Let us affirm what seems to be the truth, that, whether one is or is not, one and the others in relation to themselves and one another, all of them, in every way, are and are not, and appear to be and appear not to be.
Necessity, who is the mother of invention.
... you did not seem to me over-fond of money. And this is the way in general with those who have not made it themselves, while those who have are twice as fond of it as anyone else. For just as poets are fond of their own poems, and fathers of their own children, so money-makers become devoted to money, not only because, like other people, they find it useful, but because its their own creation.
There still remain three studies suitable for free man. Arithmetic is one of them.
Mathematics is like checkers in being suitable for the young, not too difficult, amusing, and without peril to the state.
He who can properly define and divide is to be considered a god.
He is unworthy of the name of man who is ignorant of the fact that the diagonal of a square is incommensurable with its side.
I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning.
The soul takes nothing with her to the other world but her education and culture; and these, it is said, are of the greatest service or of the greatest injury to the dead man, at the very beginning of his journey hither.
The soul of man is immortal and imperishable.
To love rightly is to love what is orderly and beautiful in an educated and disciplined way.
The greatest penalty of evildoing namely, to grow into the likeness of bad men.
The life which is not examined is not worth living.
No law or ordinance is mightier than understanding.
The knowledge of which geometry aims is the knowledge of the eternal.
Justice is having and doing what is one's own.
Mankind censure injustice fearing that they may be the victims of it, and not because they shrink from committing it.
Ignorance of all things is an evil neither terrible nor excessive, nor yet the greatest of all; but great cleverness and much learning, if they be accompanied by a bad training, are a much greater misfortune.
If a man be endowed with a generous mind, this is the best kind of nobility.
The flute is not an instrument that has a good moral effect it is too exciting.
False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.
Not one of them who took up in his youth with this opinion that there are no gods ever continued until old age faithful to his conviction.
If a man neglects education, he walks lame to the end of his life.
Let early education be a sort of amusement; you will then be better able to find out the natural bent.
Democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.
Democracy passes into despotism.
When speaking of divine perfection, we signify that God is just and true and loving, the author of order, not disorder, of good, not evil. We signify that he is justice, that he is truth, that he is love, that he is order, that he is the very progress of
It is right to give every man his due.
Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.
He who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden.
The beginning is the most important part of the work.
Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another.
Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety.
He is a fool who cannot be angry; but he is a wise man who will not.
Beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities (for he has hold not of an image but of a reality), and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may.
The first and best victory is to conquer self; to be conquered by self is of all things most shameful and vile.
He who commits injustice is ever made more wretched than he who suffers it.
Love will make men dare to die for their beloved -love alone; and women as well as men.
Prefer diligence before idleness, unless you esteem rust above brightness.
Poetry comes nearer to vital truth than history.
Pleasure is the bait of sin.
Old age has a great sense of calm and freedom. When the passions have relaxed their hold and have escaped, not from one master, but from many.
More will be accomplished, and better, and with more ease, if every man does what he is best fitted to do, And nothing else.
Medicine is an art, and attends to the nature and constitution of the patient, and has principles of action And reason in each case.
Seven years of silent inquiry are needful for a man to learn the truth, but fourteen in order to learn how to make it known to his fellowmen.
Knowledge without justice ought to be called cunning rather than wisdom.
The learning and knowledge that we have, is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant.
He whom love touches not walks in darkness.
The elements of instruction should be presented to the mind in childhood, but not with any compulsion.
God is truth and light his shadow.
Excess generally causes reaction and produces a change in the opposite direction, whether it be in the seasons, or in individuals, or in government.
Books are immortal sons deifying their sires.
As empty vessels make the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers.
All men are by nature equal, made all of the same earth by one Workman; And however we deceive ourselves, as dear unto God is the poor peasant as the mighty prince.
A philosopher is one who desires to discern the truth.
Health, beauty, vigor, riches, and all the other things called goods, operate equally as evils to the vicious and unjust, as they do as benefits to the just.
Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand.
The good is the beautiful.
Refrain from covetousness, and thy estate shall prosper.
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.
All things flow; nothing abides.
That man is wisest who, like Socrates, realizes that his wisdom is worthless.
Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, And philosophy begins in wonder.
Wealth is the parent of luxury and indolence, and poverty of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent.
Virtue is a kind of health, beauty and good habit of the soul.
Thinking is the talking of the soul with itself.
The world is God's epistle to mankind - his thoughts are flashing upon us from every direction.
The seen is the changing, the unseen is the unchanging.
The most virtuous of all men is he that contents himself with being virtuous without seeking to appear so.
The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things.
The life that is unexamined is not worth living.
The punishment suffered by the wise who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the government of bad men.
At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.
Only the dead have seen the end of the war.
Attention to health is lifes greatest hindrance.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.
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