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Certain values, be they success or the love of someone, or freedom to speak the truth as in the case of Socrates, or Joan of Arc’s being true to her ‘inner voices,’ are believed in as the ‘core’ of the person’s reasons for living, and if such a value is destroyed, the person feels his existence as a self might as well be destroyed likewise.

You must either persuade [your government] or obey its orders, and endure in silence whatever it instructs you to endure…. To do so is right, and one must not give way or retreat or leave one’s post. Both in war and in courts and everywhere else, one must obey the commands of one’s city and country, or persuade it as to the nature of justice.

Fields and trees teach me nothing, but the people in a city do.

The body fills us with loves and desires and fears and all sorts of fancies and a great deal of nonsense, with the result that we literally never get an opportunity to think at all about anything… That is why, on all these accounts, we have so little time for philosophy. Worst of all, if we do obtain any leisure from the body’s claims and turn to some line of inquiry, the body intrudes once more into our investigations, interrupting, disturbing, distracting, and preventing us from getting a glimpse of the truth. We are in fact convinced that if we are ever to have pure knowledge of anything, we must get rid of the body and contemplate things in isolation with the soul in insolation. It’s likely, to judge from our argument, that the wisdom which we desire and upon which we profess to have set our hearts will be attainable only when we are dead, and not in our lifetime.

All I do is assist in the birth of knowledge, the birth of the understanding of ideas in someone else's mind.

Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.

Let us suppose that there are two sorts of existences — one seen, the other unseen... The seen is the changing, and the unseen is the unchanging.

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.

Physical strength is movement of the soul assisted by the body.

I think that just as one man’s body is naturally stronger than another’s for labor, so one man’s soul is naturally braver than another’s in danger. For I notice that man brought up under the same laws and customs differ widely in daring.

The nearest way to glory is to strive to be what you wish be thought to be.

How many things there are which I do not need!

We are discussing no small matter, but how we ought to live.

For anything that men can tell, death may be the greatest good that can happen to them: but they fear it as if they knew quite well that is was the greatest of evils. And what is this but that shameful ignorance of thinking that we know what we do now know?

The fondness of the lover is not a matter of goodwill, but of appetite which he wishes to satisfy: just as the wolf loves the lamb, so the lover adores his beloved.

Money is to be kept at a distance if one doesn’t know how to use it.

We ought to esteem it of the greatest importance that the stories which children first hear should be adapted in the most perfect manner to the promotion of virtue.

The epithet 'wise' is too great and befits God alone; but the name 'philosopher,' that is, 'lover of wisdom,' or something of the sort, would be more fitting and modest for a man.

It was not wisdom that enabled them 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.

It is equally dangerous giving a madman a knife and a villain power.

The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways — I to die and you to live. Which is the better God only knows.

O men of Athens...either acquit me or not; but whichever you do, understand that I shall never alter my ways, not even if I have to die many times.

Good Sir, you are an Athenian, a citizen of the greatest city with the greatest reputation for both wisdom and power; are you not ashamed of your eagerness to possess as much wealth, reputation and honors as possible, while you do not care for not give thought to wisdom or truth, or the best possible state of your soul?

Let him who would move the world first move himself.

A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion....

Are you not ashamed that you give your attention to acquiring as much money as possible . . . and give not attention and thought to truth and understanding?

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

Wealth does not bring about excellence, but excellence brings about wealth...

All wars are undertaken for the acquisition of wealth; and the reason why we have to acquire wealth is the body: because we are slaves in its service.

It is not that, knowing the answer myself, I perplex other people. The truth is rather that I infect them also with the perplexity I feel myself.

There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.

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

I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.

Gentlemen of the jury, I am grateful and I am your friend, but I will obey the god, rather than you. And as long as I draw breath and am able, I shall never cease from the practice and philosophy, which is cross-examining the pretenders to wisdom, exhorting them to care first and chiefly about the improvement of their soul. Therefore, I can't hold my tongue daily to discourse about virtues.

And in knowing that you know nothing, that makes you the smartest of all.

The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world is to be in reality what we would appear to be; all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice and experience of them.

If you think that by killing men you can prevent someone from censuring your evil lives, you are mistaken.

Whenever, therefore, people are deceived and form opinions wide of the truth, it is clear that the error has slid into their minds through the medium of certain resemblances to that truth.

…the really important thing is not to live, but to live well…. …to live well means the same thing as to live honorably or rightly.

There is no release or salvation from evil except the attainment of the highest virtue and wisdom.

The only proof of my honesty is my poverty.

Nothing is to be preferred before justice.

In the knowable realm, the form of the good is the last thing to be seen, and it is reached only with difficulty. Once one has seen it, however, one must conclude that it is the cause of all that is correct and beautiful in anything...and that in the intelligible realm it controls and provides truth and understanding, so that anyone who is to act sensibly in private or public must see it.

Anyone with any understanding would remember that the eyes may be confused in two ways and from two causes, namely, when they've come from the light into the darkness and when they've come from the darkness into the light.

Know thyself.

May I understand that it is only the wise who are rich, and may I have only as much money as a temperate person needs.

Education isn't what some people declare it to be, namely, putting knowledge into souls that lack it, like putting sight into blind eyes. ...the power to learn is present in everyone's soul and the instrument with which each learns is like an eye that cannot be turned around from darkness to light without turning the whole body.

Or have you ever noticed this about people who are said to be vicious but clever, how keen the vision of their little souls is and how sharply it distinguishes the things it is turned towards? This shows that its sight isn't inferior but rather is forced to serve evil ends, so that the sharper it sees, the more evil it accomplishes.

...it isn't the law's concern to make any one class in the city outstandingly happy but to contrive to spread happiness throughout the city by bringing the citizens into harmony with each other through persuasion or compulsion and by making them share with each other the benefits that each class can confer on the community.

The true champion of justice, if he intends to survive even for a short time, must necessarily confine himself to private life and leave politics alone.