What does this quote mean?

“But why, my dear Crito, should we care about the opinion of the many?”

Socrates challenges the idea that widespread approval should decide a moral question, directing attention toward informed judgment rather than numerical popularity.

Source note: Crito, Benjamin Jowett translation; Socrates responds to Crito’s concern about public opinion while awaiting execution.

“What Saith thy Conscience?—“Thou shalt become what thou art.””

The line frames conscience as a demand to develop into one’s own character rather than merely conforming to an externally supplied identity.

Source note: The Joyful Wisdom, aphorism 270; Thomas Common translation. The formula has a longer classical and Nietzschean history, so this record is tied specifically to this occurrence.

“Public opinion—private laziness.”

The epigram provocatively suggests that adopting public opinion can sometimes substitute borrowed judgment for the harder work of forming one’s own view.

Source note: Human, All-Too-Human, Part I, aphorism 482, “Repeated Once More”; Helen Zimmern translation.

“Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.”

Mill draws a boundary around mature individual self-government: social power requires justification when it coerces a person in matters that principally concern that person rather than preventing harm to others.

Source note: On Liberty, Chapter I, Project Gutenberg #34901. This sentence follows Mill’s harm-principle formulation and belongs to a political-philosophical argument about the legitimate limits of social and legal interference. It is not a claim that every private action has no effects or obligations toward other people.

“They must only bow to the authority of reason, instead of being the modest slaves of opinion.”

Respectability is grounded in independent reasoning rather than deference to social opinion, making judgment more important than approval.

Source note: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; Wollstonecraft explicitly connects independence of character with the exercise of understanding.

“It is not selfish to think for oneself.”

Independent thought is distinguished from selfishness: forming one’s own judgment can protect individuality without requiring indifference to other people.

Source note: The Soul of Man under Socialism; Wilde defends individual thought while criticizing social pressure that mistakes conformity for moral virtue.