“I set to do you—each one of you, individually and in private—what I hold to be the greatest possible service. I tried to persuade each one of you to concern himself less with what he has than with what he is, so as to render himself as excellent and rational as possible.”
36c6, as cited in Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life (1995), p. 90
Plato, Apology
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Socrates 168
classical Greek Athenian philosopher -470–-399 BCRelated quotes

Source: Demian (1919), p. 147
Context: Certainly you shouldn't go kill somebody or rape a girl, no! But you haven't reached the point where you can understand the actual meaning of "permitted" and "forbidden." You've only sensed part of the truth. You will feel the other part, too, you can depend on it. For instance, for about a year you have had to struggle with a drive that is stronger than any other and which is considered "forbidden." The Greeks and many other peoples, on the other hand, elevated this drive, made it divine and celebrated it in great feasts. What is forbidden, in other words, is not something eternal; it can change. Anyone can sleep with a woman as soon as he's been to a pastor with her and has married her, yet other races do it differently, even nowadays. Each of us has to find out for himself what is permitted and what is forbidden — forbidden for him. It's possible for one never to transgress a single law and still be a bastard. And vice versa. Actually it's only a question of convenience. Those who are too lazy and comfortable to think for themselves and be their own judges obey the laws. Others sense their own laws within them; things are forbidden to them that every honorable man will do any day in the year and other things are allowed to them that are generally despised. Each person must stand on his own feet.

"Literary Portraits. VIII - Mr. Joseph Conrad," in The Tribune (1907-09-14)

Quoted in Peter's Quotations : Ideas for Our Time (1977) by Laurence J. Peter.

G. Stanley Hall. From Generation to Generation http://books.google.com/books?id=b-UtAAAAYAAJ&q=%22Every+theory+of+love+from+Plato+down+teaches+that+each+individual+loves+in+the+other+sex+what+he+lacks+in+himself%22&pg=PA250#v=onepage, The American Magazine, July 1908

From 1980s onwards, Only Integrity is Going to Count (1983)
Context: I never try to tell anybody else what to do, number one. And number two, I think that's what the individual is all about. Each one of us has something to contribute. This really depends on each one doing their own thinking, but not following any kind of rule that I can give out, any command. We're all on the frontier, we're all in a great mystery — incredibly mysterious. Each one possesses exactly what each one is working out, and what each one works out relates to their particular set of circumstances of any one day, or any one place around the world.

1850s, Speech at Chicago (1858)
Context: I believe each individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruit of his labor, so far as it in no wise interferes with any other man's rights, that each community, as a State, has a right to do exactly as it pleases with all the concerns within that State that interfere with the right of no other State, and that the general government, upon principle, has no right to interfere with anything other than that general class of things that does concern the whole.