C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Socrates
A man can no more make a safe use of wealth without reason than he can of a horse without a bridle.
All men’s souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine.
An envious man waxeth lean with the fatness of his neighbors. Envy is the daughter of pride, the author of murder and revenge, the beginner of secret sedition and the perpetual tormentor of virtue. Envy is the filthy slime of the soul; a venom, a poison, or quicksilver which consumeth the flesh and drieth up the marrow of the bones.
As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.
Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.
Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in continue firm and constant.
Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.
Before the birth of Love, many fearful things took place through the empire of necessity; but when this god was born, all things rose to men.
Contentment is natural wealth; luxury, artificial poverty.
Employ your time in improving yourselves by other men’s documents: so shall you come easily by what others have labored hard for.
Fame is the perfume of heroic deeds.
Flattery is like a painted armor; only for show.
Four things belong to a judge: to hear courteously, to answer wisely, to consider soberly, and to decide impartially.
Happiness is unrepented pleasure.
He is not only idle who does nothing, but he is idle who might be better employed.
He is richest who is content with the least; for content is the wealth of nature.
I am not an Athenian, nor a Greek, but a citizen of the world.
I believe that we cannot live better than in seeking to become better, nor more agreeably than having a clear conscience.
I pray Thee, O God, that I may be beautiful within.
If thou continuest to take delight in idle argumentation, thou mayest be qualified to combat with the sophists, but never know how to love with men.
Knowledge is our ultimate good.
Listen not to a tale-bearer or slanderer, for he tells thee nothing out of good-will; but as he discovereth of the secrets of others, so he will of thine in turn.
Malice drinketh up the greater part of its own poison.
No man undertakes a trade he has not learned, even the meanest; yet every one thinks himself sufficiently qualified for the hardest of all trades—that of government.
Our prayers should be for blessings in general, for God knows best what is good for us.
Slanderers do not hurt me, because they do not hit me.
Such as thy words are, such will thy affections be esteemed; and such will thy deeds as thy affections, and such thy life as thy deeds.
The end of life is to be like unto God; and the soul following God will be like unto Him.
The fewer our wants the nearer we resemble the gods.
The greatest flood has the soonest ebb; the sorest tempest the most sudden calm; the hottest love the coldest end; and from the deepest desire oftentimes ensues the deadliest hate.
The soul is cured of its maladies by certain incantations; these incantations are beautiful reasons, from which temperance is generated in souls.
The tongue of a fool is the key of his counsel, which, in a wise man, wisdom hath in keeping.
The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.
There is no difference between knowledge and temperance; for he who knows what is good and embraces it, who knows what is bad and avoids it, is learned and temperate.
They who provide much wealth for their children, but neglect to improve them in virtue, do like those who feed their horses high, but never train them to the ménage.
Though flattery blossoms like friendship, yet there is a vast difference in the fruit.
Trust not a woman when she weeps, for it is her nature to weep when she wants her will.
Virtue is the beauty of the soul.
Virtue is the nursing-mother of all human pleasures, who, in rendering the just, renders them also pure and permanent; in moderating them, keeps them in breath and appetite; in interdicting those which she herself refuses, whets our desires to those that she allows; and, like a kind and liberal mother, abundantly allows all that nature requires, even to satiety, if not to lassitude.
Wind puffs up empty bladders; opinion, fools.
Wisdom adorns riches, and shadows poverty.
Woman, once made, equal to man, becometh his superior.