1. The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms.
  2. I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make him think.
  3. I am not an Athenian, nor a Greek, but a citizen of the world.
  4. Know thyself.
  5. He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.
  6. If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it.
  7. They are not only idle who do nothing, but they are idle also who might be better employed.
  8. I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.
  9. Nature has given us two ears, two eyes, and but one tongue—to the end that we should hear and see more than we speak.
  10. In childhood be modest, in youth temperate, in adulthood just, and in old age prudent.
  11. Let him that would move the world, first move himself.
  12. Be slow to fall into friendship; but when you are in, continue firm and constant.
  13. Fame is the perfume of heroic deeds.
  14. The envious person grows lean with the fatness of his neighbor.
  15. False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.
  16. The fewer our wants the more we resemble the gods.
  17. Life contains but two tragedies. One is not to get your heart’s desire; the other is to get it.
  18. Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions, but those who kindly reprove your faults.
  19. Give me beauty in the inward soul; may the outward and the inward man be at one.
  20. He is rich who is content with the least; for contentment is the wealth of nature.
  21. Remember, no human condition is ever permanent. Then you will not be overjoyed in good fortune nor too scornful in misfortune.
  22. The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
  23. Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
  24. Be as you wish to seem.
  25. Do not do to others what angers you if done to you by others.
  26. Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity.
  27. Smart people learn from everything and everyone, average people from their experiences. Stupid people already have all the answers.
  28. Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.
  29. There are two kinds of disease of the soul, vice and ignorance.
  30. Sometimes you put walls up not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to break them down.
  31. Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people.
  32. Falling down is not a failure. Failure comes when you stay where you have fallen.
  33. Prefer knowledge to wealth, for the one is transitory, the other perpetual.
  34. Get not your friends by bare compliments, but by giving them sensible tokens of your love.
  35. One should never do wrong in return, nor mistreat any man, no matter how one has been mistreated by him.
  36. 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.
  37. Children nowadays are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers.
  38. The years wrinkle our skin, but lack of enthusiasm wrinkles our soul.
  39. When you want wisdom and insight as badly as you want to breathe, it is then you shall have it.
  40. To move the world, we must move ourselves.
  41. A wise man speaks because he has something to say; a fool because he has to say something.
  42. No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth.
  43. If one has made a mistake, and fails to correct it, one has made a greater mistake.
  44. Don't force your children into your ways, for they were created for a time different from your own.
  45. Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.
  46. No one ever dies an atheist.
  47. Wisest is he who knows what he does not know.
  48. The right question is usually more important than the right answer.
  49. In an honest man there is always something of a child.
  50. Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.
  51. Criticism is something we can avoid easilyby saying nothing, doing nothing,and being nothing.
  52. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
  53. The fool tells me his reason; the wise man persuades me with my own.
  54. The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.