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Thales was asked what was very difficult; he said: "To know one's self."

— Diogenes Laërtius

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More quotes by Diogenes Laërtius

Virtue is harmony, and health, and universal good, and God; on which account everything owes its existence and consistency to harmony.

Once he saw a youth blushing, and addressed him, "Courage, my boy! that is the complexion of virtue."

The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (200)

Ignorance plays the chief part among men, and the multitude of words.

The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (200)

Chilo advised, "not to speak evil of the dead."

The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (200)

He used to define justice as "a virtue of the soul distributing that which each person deserved."

The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (200)

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You have to start with the truth. The truth is the only way that we can get anywhere. Because any decision-making that is based upon lies or ignorance can't lead to a good conclusion.

Julian Assange

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.

H. P. Lovecraft The Call of Cthulhu (1926)

It is not in the books of the Philosophers, but in the religious symbolism of the Ancients, that we must look for the footprints of Science, and re-discover the Mysteries of Knowledge.

Albert Pike Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871)

Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education.

Bertrand Russell

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Diogenes Laërtius (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.