The sign is a voice which comes to me and always forbids me to do something which I am going to do, but never commands me to do anything - and this is what stands in the way of my being a politician.

For the truth is that I have no regular disciples: but if anyone likes to come and hear me while I am pursuing my mission, whether he be young or old, he may freely come.

For I must tell you the truth - the result of my mission was just this: I found that the men most in repute were all but the most foolish; and that some inferior men were really wiser and better.

For they do not like to confess that their pretense of knowledge has been detected which is the truth: and as they are numerous and ambitious and energetic, and are all in battle array and have persuasive tongues, they have filled your ears with their loud and inveterate calumnies.

Men of Athens, I honor and love you; but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy, exhorting anyone whom I meet after my manner, and convincing him, saying: 0 my friend, why do you, who are a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of Athens, care so much about laying up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation, and so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all? Are you not ashamed of this?

False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.

-Socrates, Greek philosopher

Socrates was the first individual to question everything and everyone and it offended the leaders of this time. He was found guilty of heresy as charged and sentenced to drink hemlock which cost him his life.

See Ernest Hemingway

Aristotle, Demosthenes

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