"The highest realms of thought are impossible to reach without first attaining an understanding of compassion."

"Do not do to others what angers you if done to you by others."

"Do you feel no compunction, Socrates, at having followed a line of action which puts you in danger of the death penalty?' I might fairly reply to him, 'You are mistaken, my friend, if you think that a man who is worth anything ought to spend his time weighing up the prospects of life and death. He has only one thing to consider in performing any action--that is, whether he is acting rightly or wrongly, like a good man or a bad one."

"I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think."

"As for me, all I know is that I know nothing, for when I don't know what justice is, I'll hardly know whether it is a kind of virtue or not, or whether a person who has it is happy or unhappy."

"Nobody is qualified to become a statesman who is entirely ignorant of the problem of wheat."

"Be as you wish to seem."

"From the deepest desires often comes the deadliest hate."

"Man's greatest privilege is the discussion of virtue."

"One should never do wrong in return, nor mistreat any man, no matter how one has been mistreated by him."