Athens is like a sluggish horse, and I am the gadfly trying to sting it into life.

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 to 'give birth' to correct insight, since real understanding must come from within. . . . Everybody can grasp philosophical truths if they just use their innate reason.

When you realize there is something you don't understand, then you're generally on the right path to understanding all kinds of things.

When we sense something, it is due to the movement of atoms in space. When I see the moon it is because "moon atoms" penetrate my eye.

a sensation is always the same as a piece of news, and a piece of news never lives long.

How terribly sad it was that people are made in such a way that they get used to something as extraordinary as living.