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The person who has had a bull by the tail once has learned 60 or 70 times as much as a person who hasn’t.

There is a foolish corner in the brain of the wisest man.

It is wise to remember that you are one of those who can be fooled some of the time.

The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart.

Whatever comes from the heart carries the heat and color of its birthplace.

Everything has been thought of before, but the difficulty is to think of it again.

Everything has been thought of before, but the difficulty is to think of it again.

Inspiration is never genuine if it is known as inspiration at the time. True inspiration always steals on a person, its importance not being fully recognized for some time.

He who is slowest in making a promise is most faithful in its performance.

The truth about a man is, first of all, what it is that he keeps hidden.

Yet even in reaching for the beautiful there is beauty, and also in suffering whatever it is that one suffers en route.

Wisdom always makes men fortunate: for by wisdom no man could ever err, and therefore, he must act rightly and succeed, or his wisdom would be wisdom no longer.

Wisdom alone is the true and unalloyed coin for which we ought to exchange all things, for this and with this everything is bought and sold Fortitude, temperance, and justice; in a word, true virtue subsists with wisdom.

Whenever anyone informs us that he has found a man who knows all the arts, and all things else that anybody knows, and every single thing with a higher degree of accuracy than any other man –whoever tells us this, I think that we can only imagine him to be a simple creature who is likely to have been deceived by some wizard or actor whom he met, and whom he thought all-knowing, because he himself was unable to analyze the nature of knowledge and ignorance and imitation.

What shall we say about those spectators, then, who can see a plurality of beautiful things, but not beauty itself, and who are incapable of following if someone else tries to lead them to it, and who can see many moral actions, but not morality itself, and so on? That they only ever entertain beliefs, and do not know any of the things they believe?

When I hear a man discoursing of virtue, or of any sort of wisdom, who is a true man and worthy of his theme, I am delighted beyond measure: and I compare the man and his words, and note the harmony and correspondence of them. And such a one I deem to be the true musician, having in himself a fairer harmony than that of the lyre.

What kind of man am I? One of those who would be pleased to be refuted if I say anything untrue, and who would be pleased to refute anyone who says anything untrue; one who, however, wouldn’t be any less pleased to be refuted than to refute. For I count being refuted a greater good, insofar as it is a greater good for oneself to be delivered from the worst thing there is than to deliver someone else from it.

We shall be better and braver and less helpless if we think that we ought to enquire, than we should have been if we indulged in the idle fancy that there was no knowing and no use in seeking to know what we do not know;— that is a theme upon which I am ready to fight, in word and deed, to the utmost of my power.

Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils — no, nor the human race, as I believe — and then only will this our State have a possibility of life and behold the light of day.

True opinions are a fine thing and do all sorts of good so long as they stay in their place; but they will not stay long. They run away from a man's mind, so they are not worth much until you tether them by working out the reason. Once they are tied down, they become knowledge, and are stable.

To fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise without really being wise, for it is to think that we know what we do not know. For no one knows whether death may not be the greatest good that can happen to man.

To the rulers of the state then, if to any, it belongs of right to use falsehood, to deceive either enemies or their own citizens, for the good of the state: and no one else may meddle with this privilege.

Those who have a natural talent for calculation are generally quick-witted at every other kind of knowledge; and even the dull, if they have had an arithmetical training, although they may derive no other advantage from it, always become much quicker than they would have been.

This world is indeed a living being endowed with a soul and intelligence ... a single visible living entity containing all other living entities, which by their nature are all related.