Socrates Quotes - Page 2

Be slow to fall into friendship, but when you are in, continue firm and constant.

...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.

Be true to thine own self

For the poet is a light and winged and holy thing, and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his senses, and the mind is no longer in him: when he has not attained to this state, he is powerless and is unable to utter his oracles.

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.

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.

To find yourself, think for yourself.

The misuse of language induces evil in the soul

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.

...[Y]ou know very well the truth of what I [say]... I have incurred a great deal of bitter hostility; and this is what will bring about my destruction, if anything does... the slander and jealousy of a very large section of the people. They have been fatal to a great many other innocent men, and I suppose will continue to be so; there is no likelihood that they will stop at me. But perhaps someone will say 'Do you feel no compunction, Socrates, at having followed a line of action which puts you in danger of the death-penalty?' I might fairly reply to him 'You are mistaken, my friend, if you think that a man who is worth anything ought to spend his time weighing up the prospects of life and death. He has only one thing to consider in performing any action; that is, whether he is acting rightly or wrongly, like a good man or a bad one...['] The truth of the matter is this, gentlemen. Where a man has once taken up his stand, either because it seems best to him or in obedience to his orders, there I believe he is bound to remain and face the danger, taking no account of death or anything else before dishonour.

Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.

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.

As for me all I know is that I know nothing.

I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.

...[R]eal wisdom is the property of God, and... human wisdom has little or no value.

Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior.

...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.

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 ...

When you want wisdom and insight as badly as you want to breathe, it is then you shall have it.

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.

The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our separate ways, I to die, and you to live. Which of these two is better only God knows.

I am a citizen not of Athens or Greece but of the world.

If a man comes to the door of poetry untouched by the madness of the Muses, believing that technique alone will make him a good poet, he and his sane compositions never reach perfection, but are utterly eclipsed by the performances of the inspired madman.

Be of good cheer about death, and know this of a truth, that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.

...[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...

Living well and beautifully and justly are all one thing.

How many things there are which I do not want.

My advice to you is get married: if you find a good wife you'll be happy; if not, you'll become a philosopher.

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.

How can you wonder your travels do you no good, when you carry yourself around with you?

The only thing I know is that I know nothing, and i am no quite sure that i know that.

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.

The greatest blessing granted to mankind come by way of madness, which is a divine gift.

...I have had a remarkable experience. In the past the prophetic voice to which I have become accustomed has always been my constant companion, opposing me even in quite trivial things if I was going to take the wrong course. Now something has happened to me, as you can see, which might be thought and is commonly considered to be a supreme calamity; yet neither when I left home this morning, nor when I was taking my place here in court, nor at any point in any part of my speech did the divine sign oppose me. In other discussions it has often checked me in the middle of a sentence; but this time it has never opposed me in any part of this business in anything that I have said or done. What do I suppose to be the explanation? I will tell you. I suspect that this thing that has happened to me is a blessing, and we are quite mistaken in supposing death to be an evil. I have good grounds for thinking this, because my accustomed sign could not have failed to oppose me if what I was doing had not been sure to bring some good result.

He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.

If I save my insight, I don’t attend to weakness of eyesight.

I am convinced that I never wrong anyone intentionally...

wealth does not bring goodness, but goodness brings wealth and every other blessing, both to the individual and to the state

The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.

He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.

I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think

To do is to be.

Be slow to fall into friendship but when thou art in continue firm and constant.

...[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.

The poets are only the interpreters of the gods.

...[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?

Life contains but two tragedies. One is not to get your heart’s desire the other is to get it.

Be slow to fall into friendship but when thou art in continue firm and constant.

...[M]en are put in a sort of guard-post, from which one must not release one's self or run away...

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.

The fewer our wants the nearer we resemble the gods.

Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents gobble their food and tyrannize their teachers.

What most counts is not to live but to live aright.

There is one way, then, in which a man can be free from all anxiety about the fate of his soul - if in life he has abandoned bodily pleasures and adornments, as foreign to his purpose and likely to do more harm than good, and has devoted himself to the pleasures of acquiring knowledge, and so by decking his soul not with a borrowed beauty but with its own - with self-control, and goodness, and courage, and liberality, and truth - has fitted himself to await his journey in the next world.

Nobody is qualified to become a statesman who is entirely ignorant of the problems of wheat.

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?