“Travel is not about where you go, but how you see the world.”
“He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.”
“What all divine virtues have you developed?
Have you got a balanced mind and an equal vision?”
“You have to be quite heavily invested in someone to do them the honour of telling them you’re annoyed with them.”
“Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.”
“What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”
“Reason belongs to the head, will belongs to the chest, and appetite belongs to the abdomen. Each of these soul faculties also has an ideal, or ‘virtue.’ Reason aspires to wisdom, Will aspires to courage, and Appetite must be curbed so that temperance can be exercised. Only when the three parts of the body function together as a unity do we get a harmonious or ‘virtuous’ individual. At school, a child must first learn to curb its appetites, then it must develop courage, and finally reason leads to wisdom.”
“The devil finds work for idle hands.”
“But he just asked questions, especially to begin a conversation, as if he knew nothing. In the course of the discussion he would generally get his opponents to recognise the weakness of their arguments, and, forced into a corner, they would finally be obliged to realise what was right and what was wrong.
Socrates, whose mother was a midwife, used to say that his art was like the art of the midwife. She does not herself give birth to the child, but she is there to help during its delivery. Similarly, Socrates saw his task as helping people ‘give birth’ to the correct insight, since real understanding must come from within. It cannot be imparted by someone else. And only the understanding that comes from within can lead to true insight.
”
“A bookshelf is as particular to its owner as are his or her clothes; a personality is stamped on a library just as a shoe is shaped by the foot.”
