The greatest blessing granted to mankind come by way of madness, which is a divine gift.

Do you suppose that I should have lived as long as I have if I had moved in the sphere of public life, and conducting myself in that sphere like an honorable man, had always upheld the cause of right, and conscientiously set this end above all other things? Not by a very long way, gentlemen; neither would any other man.

The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death.

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

We are in fact convinced that if we are ever to have pure knowledge of anything, we must get rid of the body and contemplate things by themselves with the soul by itself. It seems, to judge from the argument, that the wisdom which we desire and upon which we profess to have set our hearts will be attainable only when we are dead and not in our lifetime.

He is the richest who is content with the least.

I have good hope that there is something remaining for the dead.