Socrates Quotes

If a man would move the world he must first move himself.
Socrates
As for me all I know is that I know nothing.
Socrates
Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents gobble their food and tyrannize their teachers.
Socrates
You think that upon the score of fore-knowledge and divining I am infinitely inferior to the swans. When they perceive approaching death they sing more merrily than before because of the joy they have in going to the God they serve.
Socrates
The fewer our wants the nearer we resemble the gods.
Socrates
If all misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion most people would be contented to take their own and depart.
Socrates
If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion most people would be content to take their own and depart.
Socrates
Our prayers should be for blessings in general for God knows best what is good for us.
Socrates
Nobody is qualified to become a statesman who is entirely ignorant of the problems of wheat.
Socrates
If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion most people would be content to take their own and depart.
Socrates
Our prayers should be for blessings in general for God knows best what is good for us.
Socrates
Nobody is qualified to become a statesman who is entirely ignorant of the problems of wheat.
Socrates
Know thyself.
Socrates
As for me all I know is that I know nothing.
Socrates
Four things belong to a judge: to hear courteously to answer wisely to consider soberly and to decide impartially.
Socrates
He is not only idle who does nothing but he is idle who might be better employed.
Socrates
I am not an Athenian nor a Greek but a citizen of the world.
Socrates
Living well and beautifully and justly are all one thing.
Socrates
No man undertakes a trade he has not learned even the meanest yet every one thinks himself sufficiently qualified for the hardest of all trades - that of government.
Socrates
What most counts is not to live but to live aright.
Socrates
To do is to be.
Socrates
Be slow to fall into friendship but when thou art in continue firm and constant.
Socrates
Be slow to fall into friendship but when thou art in continue firm and constant.
Socrates
If all misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion most people would be contented to take their own and depart.
Socrates
How many things there are which I do not want.
Socrates
Fame is the perfume of heroic deeds.
Socrates
I am a citizen not of Athens or Greece but of the world.
Socrates
The poets are only the interpreters of the gods.
Socrates
When you want wisdom and insight as badly as you want to breathe, it is then you shall have it.
Socrates
If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be content to take their own and depart.
Socrates
Wisdom is knowing you know nothing
Socrates
You are wrong sir, if you think that a man who is any good at all should take into account the risk of life or death; he should look to this only in his actions, whether what he does is right or wrong.
Socrates
To find yourself, think for yourself.
Socrates
If the soul is immortal, it demands our care not only for that part of time which we call life, but for all time: and indeed it would seem now that it will be extremely dangerous to neglect it. If death were a release from everything, it would be a boon for the wicked. But since the soul is clearly immortal, it can have no escape or security from evil except by becoming as good and wise as it possibly can. For it takes nothing with it to the next world except its education and training: and these, we are told, are of supreme importance in helping or harming the newly dead at the very beginning of his journey there.
Socrates
An honest man is always a child.
Socrates
One who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice; and it is not right to return an injury, or to do evil to any man, however much we have suffered from him.
Socrates
.. is there not one true coin for which all things ought to exchange?- and that is wisdom; and only in exchange for this, and in company with this, is anything truly bought or sold, whether courage, temperance or justice. And is not all true virtue the companion of wisdom, no matter what fears or pleasures or other similar goods or evils may or may not attend her? But the virtue which is made up of these goods, when they are severed from wisdom and exchanged with one another, is a shadow of virtue only, nor is there any freedom or health or truth in her; but in the true exchange there is a purging away of all these things, and temperance, and justice, and courage, and wisdom herself, are a purgation of them.
Socrates
He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.
Socrates
The greatest way to live with honour in this world is to be what we pretend to be.
Socrates
No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew it was the greatest of evils.
Socrates
To fear death, gentlemen, is no other than to think oneself wise when one is not, to think one knows what one does not know. No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew that it is the greatest of evils.
Socrates
By far the greatest and most admirable form of wisdom is that needed to plan and beautify cities and human communities.
Socrates
Such as thy words are such will thine affections be esteemed and such as thine affections will be thy deeds and such as thy deeds will be thy life ...
Socrates
To find the Father of all is hard. And when found, it is impossible to utter Him.
Socrates
Regard your good name as the richest jewel you can possibly be possessed of -- for credit is like fire; when once you have kindled it you may easily preserve it, but if you once extinguish it, you will find it an arduous task to rekindle it again. The way to a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.
Socrates
Intelligent individuals learn from every thing and every one; average people, from their experiences. The stupid already have all the answers.
Socrates
All I know is that I do not know anything
Socrates
...I do not believe that the law of God permits a better man to be harmed by a worse. No doubt my accuser might put me to death or have me banished or deprived of civic rights; but even if he thinks, as he probably does (and others to, I dare say), that these are great calamities, I do not think so... For let me tell you, gentlemen, that to be afraid of death is only another form of thinking that one is wise when one is not; it is to think that one knows what one does not know. No one knows with regard to death whether it is not really the greatest blessing that can happen to a man; but people dread it as though they were certain that it is the greatest evil; and this ignorance, which thinks that it knows what it does not, must surely be ignorance most culpable. This, I take it, gentlemen, is the degree, and this is the nature of my advantage over the rest of mankind; and if I were to claim to be wiser than my neighbour in any respect, it would be in this: that not possessing any real knowledge of what comes after death, I am also conscious that I do not possess it. But I do know that to do wrong and to disobey my superior, whether God or man, is wicked and dishonourable; and so I shall never feel more fear or aversion for something which, for all I know, may really be a blessing, than for those evils which I know to be evils.
Socrates
...[I]f at the time of its release the soul is tainted and impure, because it has always associated with the body and cared for it and loved it, and has been so beguiled by the body and its passions and pleasures that nothing seems real to it but those physical things which can be touched and seen and eaten and drunk and used for sexual enjoyment; and if it is accustomed to hate and fear and avoid what is invisible and hidden from our eyes, but intelligible and comprehensible by philosophy - if the soul is in this state, do you think that it will escape independent and uncontaminated?
Socrates
One day, the old wise Socrates walks down the streets, when all of the sudden a man runs up to him "Socrates I have to tell you something about your friend who...""Hold up" Socrates interrupts him "About the story you're about to tell me, did you put it trough the three sieves?""Three sieves?" The man asks "What three sieves?""Let's try it" Socrates says."The first sieve is the one of truth, did you examine what you were about to tell me if it is true?" Socrates asks."Well no, I just overheard it" The man says."Ah, well then you have used the second sieve, the sieve of good?" Socrates asks "Is it something good what you're about to tell me?""Ehm no, on the contrary" the man answers."Hmmm" The wise man says "Let's use the third sieve then, is it necessary to tell me what you're so exited about?""No not necessary" the man says."Well" Socrates says with a smile "If the story you're about to tell me isn't true, good or necessary, just forget it and don't bother me with it.
Socrates
...a good man cannot be harmed either in life or in death, and that his affairs are not neglected by the gods.
Socrates
The true champion of justice, if he intends to survive even for a short time, must necessarily confine himself to private life and leave politics alone.
Socrates
A man who really fights for justice must lead a private, not a public, life if he is to survive for even a short time.
Socrates
Do you imagine that a city can continue to exist and not be turned upside down, if the legal judgments which are pronounced in it have no force but are nullified and destroyed by private persons?
Socrates
...[T]he really important thing is not to live, but to live well... [a]nd to live well means the same thing as to live honourably or rightly...
Socrates
We cannot live better than in seeking to become better.
Socrates
Is it true; is it kind, or is it necessary?
Socrates
...[F]rom me you shall hear the whole truth; not, I can assure you, gentlemen, in flowery language... decked out with fine words and phrases; no, what you will hear will be a straightforward speech in the first words that occur to me, confident as I am in the justice of my cause; and I do not want any of you to expect anything different.
Socrates
...I do not think that it is right for a man to appeal to the jury or to get himself acquitted by doing so; he ought to inform them of the facts and convince them by argument. The jury does not sit to dispense justice as a favour, but to decide where justice lies; and the oath which they have sworn is not to show favour at their own discretion, but to return a just and lawful verdict... Therefore you must not expect me, gentlemen, to behave towards you in a way which I consider neither reputable nor moral nor consistent with my religious duty.
Socrates
I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.
Socrates