Athens quotes

Discover ancient wisdom and wanderlust in Athens. Uncover timeless quotes that capture the spirit of this vibrant city as you explore its rich history and breathtaking landmarks. Find inspiration in the birthplace of democracy, where past meets present in charming harmony.

Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul.

- Plato

To find yourself, think for yourself.

- Socrates

True friendship can exist only between equals.

- Plato

Those who tell the stories rule society.

- Plato

There is truth in wine and children.

- Plato

The untrained mind keeps up a running commentary, labelling everything, judging everything. Best to ignore that commentary. Don’t argue or resist, just ignore. Deprived of attention and interest, this voice gets quieter and quieter and eventually just shuts up.

- Plato

The right question is usually more important than the right answer.

- Plato

The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.

- Plato

The power and capacity of learning exists in the soul already.

- Plato

The one who learns and learns and doesn’t practice is like the one who plows and plows and never plants.

- Plato

The measure of a man is what he does with power.

- Plato

Reality is created by the mind, we can change our reality by changing our mind.

- Plato

Poverty doesn’t come because of the decrease of wealth but because of the increase of desires.

- Plato

One of the penalties of refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.

- Plato

No wealth can ever make a bad man at peace with himself.

- Plato

No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth.

- Plato

Neither the uneducated and uninformed of the truth, nor yet those who never make an end of their education, will be able ministers of State; not the former, because they have no single aim of duty which is the rule of all their actions, private as well as public; nor the latter, because they will not act at all except upon compulsion, fancying that they are already dwelling apart in the islands of the blest.

- Plato

Love is of something, and that which love desires is not that which love is or has; for no man desires that which he is or has. And love is of the beautiful, and therefore has not the beautiful. And the beautiful is the good, and therefore, in wanting and desiring the beautiful, love also wants and desires the good.

- Plato

He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.

- Socrates

The value of a man is measured in the number of those who stand beside him, not those who follow.

- Socrates

The soul takes nothing with her to the next world but her education and her culture. At the beginning of the journey to the next world, one's education and culture can either provide the greatest assistance, or else act as the greatest burden, to the person who has just died.

- Plato

Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.

- Plato

The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom is courage.

- Thucydides

He is rich who is content with the least; for contentment is the wealth of nature.

- Socrates

Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for.

- Socrates

The worst type of man behaves as badly in his waking life as some men do in their dreams.

- Plato

I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think.

- Socrates

He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.

- Socrates

I thought to myself: I am wiser than this man; neither of us probably knows anything that is really good, but he thinks he has knowledge, when he has not, while I, having no knowledge, do not think I have.

- Plato

Man is a being in search of meaning.

- Plato