"Do not trouble about those who practice philosophy, whether they are good or bad; but examine the thing itself well and carefully. And if philosophy appears a bad thing to you, turn every man from it, not only your sons; but if it appears to you such as I think it to be, take courage, pursue it, and practice it, as the saying is, 'both you and your house."

"Prefer knowledge to wealth, for the one is transitory, the other perpetual"

"Death may be the greatest of all human blessings."

"For the fear of death is indeed the pretense of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being a pretense of knowing the unknown; and no one know whether death, which men in their fear apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good. Is not this ignorance of a disgraceful sort, the ignorance which is the conceit that a man knows that he does not know? And in this respect only I believe myself to differ from men in general, and may perhaps claim to be wiser than they are: that whereas I know but little of the world below, I do not suppose that I know..."

"The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our separate ways, me to die, and you to live. Which of these two is better? Only God knows."

"We approach truth only inasmuch as we depart from life. For what do we, who love truth, strive after in life? To free ourselves from the body, and from all the evil that is caused by the life of the body! If so, then how can we fail to be glad when death comes to us? The wise man seeks death all his life and therefore death is not terrible to him."

"Virtue does not come from wealth, but. . . wealth, and every other good thing which men have comes from virtue."

"Every action has its pleasures and its price."

"The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms."

"To be is to do."

"And now we go, you to your lives, and I to death, and which of us goes to the better only God knows"

"I will not yield to any man contrary to what is right, for fear of death, even if I should die at once for not yielding."