At the Egyptian city of Naucratis there was a famous old god whose name was Theuth; the bird which is called the Ibis was sacred to him, and he was the inventor of many arts, such as arithmetic and calculation and geometry and astronomy and draughts and dice, but his great discovery was the use of letters.

Whereas the truth is that the State in which the rulers are most reluctant to govern is always the best and most quietly governed, and the State in which they are most eager, the worst.

Haughtiness lives under the same roof with solitude.

I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.

The poets are nothing but interpreters of the gods, each one possessed by the divinity to whom he is in bondage.

As the builders say, the larger stones do not lie well without the lesser.

My good friend, you are a citizen of Athens, a city which is very great and very famous for its wisdom and power - are you not ashamed of caring so much for the making of money and for fame and prestige, when you neither think nor care about wisdom and truth and the improvement of your soul?