Heraclitus pointed out that the world is characterized by opposites. If we were never ill, we would not know what it was to be well. […] Both good and bad have their inevitable place in the order of things. Without this constant interplay of opposites the world would cease to exist.
[…]Understanding will always require some effort.
[…]The road to health for everyone is through moderation, harmony, and a “sound mind in a sound body.
[…]Knowing what you don’t know is also a kind of knowledge.
[…]Whenever she had really learned something, it was when she had somehow contributed to it herself.
[…]Socrates saw his task as helping people to “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 philosopher is therefore someone who recognizes that there is a lot he does not understand, and is troubled by it. In that sense, he is still wiser than all those who brag about their knowledge of things they know nothing about. “Wisest is she who knows she does not know.”
[…]The most subversive people are those who ask questions. Giving answers is not nearly as threatening. Any one question can be more explosive than a thousand answers.
[…]People are, generally speaking, either dead certain or totally indifferent.
[…]The right insight leads to the right action.
[…]Plato’s point is that we can never have true knowledge of anything that is in a constant state of change. We can only have opinions about things that belong to the world of the senses, tangible things. We can only have true knowledge of things that can be understood with our reason.
[…]But most people are content with a life among shadows. They give no thought to what is casting the shadows.
[…]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.
