The soul then, as being immortal, and having been born again many times, and having seen all things that exist, whether in this world or in the world below, has knowledge of them all . . . all enquiry and all learning is but recollection.

You think that upon the score of fore-knowledge and divining I am infinitely inferior to the swans. When they perceive approaching death they sing more merrily than before, because of the joy they have in going to the God they serve.

The cure of many diseases remains unknown to the physicians of Hellos (Greece) because they do not study the whole person.

I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.

Wonder is the beginning of all wisdom.

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.

To fear death, gentlemen, is no other than to think oneself wise when one is not, to think one knows what one does not know.