Be as you wish to seem. I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing. Be slow to fall into friendship, but when thou art in, continue firm and constant. Wisdom begins in wonder. Only the extremely ignorant or the extremely intelligent can resist change. I thought to myself, 'I am wiser than this man: neither of us knows anything that is really worthwhile, but he thinks he has knowledge when he has not, while I, having no knowledge, do not think that I have. I seem, at any rate, to be a little wiser than he is on this point: I do not think that I know what I do not know. For to fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise without really being wise, for it is to think that we know what we do not know. For no one knows whether death may not be the greatest good that can happen to man. But men fear it as if they knew quite well that it was the greatest of evils. 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? The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world is to be in reality what we would appear to be; all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice and experience of them. The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be. | 
