Quotes from Isocrates

Conduct yourself towards your parents as you would have your children conduct themselves towards you.

It is more important to know where you are going than to get there quickly. Do not mistake activity for achievement.

Guard yourself against accusations, even if they are false; for the multitude are ignorant of the truth and look only to reputation.

Of all our possessions, wisdom alone is immortal.

Spend your leisure time in cultivating an ear attentive to discourse, for in this way you will find that you learn with ease what others have found out with difficulty.

Be gracious to all men, but choose the best to be your friends.

Always when you are about to say anything, first weigh it in your mind; for with many the tongue outruns the thought.

Of all our possessions, wisdom alone is imortal.

Of all possessions wisdom alone is immortal.

It is more important to know where you are going than to get there quickly. Do not mistake activity for achievement. Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs, therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity or undue depression in adversity.

Spend your leisure time in cultivating an ear attentive to discourse, for in this way you will find that you learn with ease what others have found out with difficulty.

Absolute power is universally coveted, though all know that an absolute ruler has an anxious life and usually a violent death.

It is more important to know where you are going than to get there quickly. Do not mistake activity for achievement.

It is up-hill work to oppose our prejudices; we have a democracy, but freedom of speech is enjoyed only by the most foolish members of this Assembly and by the comic poets in the theatre. As, however, I am not here to court your votes, I shall say what I think...

It was the principle of this Court that deterrent laws, however strict, are useless without positive moral discipline; that the happiness of citizens depends, not on having the walls of their porticoes covered with laws, but on having justice in their hearts.

Under that democracy, license was not confounded with freedom. Political 'equality' has been understood in two senses: as meaning either that all are to share absolutely alike, or that every man is to receive his due. Our ancestors preferred that 'equality' which does not efface the distinction between merit and worthlessness.

Nevertheless, it is not fair to decry strength because there are persons who assault people whom they encounter, nor to traduce courage because there are those who slay men wantonly, nor in general to transfer to things the depravity of men, but rather to put the blame on the men themselves who misuse the good things, and who, by the very powers which might help their fellow-countrymen, endeavor to do them harm.

Be slow in deliberation, but be prompt to carry out your resolves

Their successors, instead of ruling for the good of their subjects, tyrannize for their own; and they met with the fate of tyrants. No person not reckless of the past could wish to imitate them. The earlier and the later experiences of Athens prove, in fact, two things: that Attica produces good men, and that empire spoils them.

Abhor flatterers as you would deceivers; for both, if trusted, injure those who trust them.

For the greatest thing in the smallest compass is a sound mind in a human body.

Oratory is good only if it has the qualities of fitness for the occasion, propriety of style, and originality of treatment, while in the case of letters there is no such need whatsoever.