"Death may be the greatest of all human blessings."

"Be of good cheer about death, and know this of a truth, that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death."

"I know you won't believe me, but the highest form of Human Excellence is to question oneself and others."

"The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our separate ways, me to die, and you to live. Which of these two is better? Only God knows."

"If you want to be a good saddler, saddle the worst horse; for if you can tame one, you can tame all."

"Now the hour to part has come. I go to die, you go to live. Which of us goes to the better lot is known to no one, except the god."

"My friend...care for your psyche...know thyself, for once we know ourselves, we may learn how to care for ourselves."

"We approach truth only inasmuch as we depart from life. For what do we, who love truth, strive after in life? To free ourselves from the body, and from all the evil that is caused by the life of the body! If so, then how can we fail to be glad when death comes to us? The wise man seeks death all his life and therefore death is not terrible to him."

"Prefer knowledge to wealth, for the one is transitory, the other perpetual."

"Beware the barrenness of a busy life."

"There is no greater evil one can suffer than to hate reasonable discourse."

"I examined the poets, and I look on them as people whose talent overawes both themselves and others, people who present themselves as wise men and are taken as such, when they are nothing of the sort. From poets, I moved to artists. No one was more ignorant about the arts than I; no one was more convinced that artists possessed really beautiful secrets. However, I noticed that their condition was no better than that of the poets and that both of them have the same misconceptions. Because the most skillful among them excel in their specialty, they look upon themselves as the wisest of men. In my eyes, this presumption completely tarnished their knowledge. As a result, putting myself in the place of the oracle and asking myself what I would prefer to be — what I was or what they were, to know what they have learned or to know that I know nothing — I replied to myself and to the god: I wish to remain who I am."

"May the inward and outward man be as one."

"The great honor in the world is to be what we pretend to be."

"To move the world we must move ourselves."

"May the inward and outward man be as one."

"God would seem to indicate to us and not allow us to doubt that these beautiful poems are not human or the work of man, but divine and the work of God; and that the poets are only the interpreters of the Gods..."

"We cannot live better than in seeking to become better."

"He is rich who is content with the least; for contentment is the wealth of nature."