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Socrates

philosopher, teacher, writer, ethicist

1999  – 2009

Socrates was an ancient Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and as among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no texts and is known mainly through the posthumous accounts of classical writers, particularly his students Plato and Xenophon. These accounts are written as dialogues, in which Socrates and his interlocutors examine a subject in the style of question and answer; they gave rise to the Socratic dialogue literary genre. Contradictory accounts of Socrates make a reconstruction of his philosophy nearly impossible, a situation known as the Socratic problem. Socrates was a polarizing figure in Athenian society. In 399 BC, he was accused of impiety and corrupting the youth. After a trial that lasted a day, he was sentenced to death. He spent his last day in prison, refusing offers to help him escape.

All Quotes by Socrates

By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.

Socrates

Where there is reverence there is fear, but there is not reverence everywhere that there is fear, because fear presumably has a wider extension than reverence.

Socrates

The unexamined life is not worth living.

Socrates

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

Socrates

Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.

Socrates

Are you not ashamed of caring so much for the making of money and for fame and prestige, when you neither think nor care about wisdom and truth and the improvement of your soul?

Socrates

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

Socrates

Our prayers should be for blessings in general, for God knows best what is good for us.

Socrates

Beware the barrenness of a busy life.

Socrates

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.

Socrates

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.

Socrates

I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.

Socrates

Beware the barrenness of a busy life.

Socrates

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

Socrates

All men's souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine.

Socrates

Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior.

Socrates

True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.

Socrates

The unexamined life is not worth living.

Socrates

Is it true; is it kind, or is it necessary?

Socrates

Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.

Socrates

Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.

Socrates

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

Socrates

True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.

Socrates

Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.

Socrates

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

Socrates

I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.

Socrates

Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.

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

Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.

Socrates

Beauty is the bait which with delight allures man to enlarge his kind.

Socrates

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

Socrates

Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death.

Socrates

As to marriage or celibacy, let a man take which course he will, he will be sure to repent.

Socrates

To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.

Socrates

I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm; then they might have an unlimited power for doing good.

Socrates

I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled poets to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.

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

Where there is reverence there is fear, but there is not reverence everywhere that there is fear, because fear presumably has a wider extension than reverence.

Socrates

True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.

Socrates

By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.

Socrates

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

Socrates

To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.

Socrates

The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.

Socrates

From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.

Socrates

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

Socrates

No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death. He and his are not neglected by the gods.

Socrates

Wisdom begins in wonder.

Socrates

An honest man is always a child.

Socrates

No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death. He and his are not neglected by the gods.

Socrates

Be as you wish to seem.

Socrates

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.

Socrates

He is a man of courage who does not run away, but remains at his post and fights against the enemy.

Socrates

Our prayers should be for blessings in general, for God knows best what is good for us.

Socrates

Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.

Socrates

It is not living that matters, but living rightly.

Socrates

A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.

Socrates

Let him that would move the world first move himself.

Socrates

The poets are only the interpreters of the gods.

Socrates

The end of life is to be like God, and the soul following God will be like Him.

Socrates

If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it.

Socrates

Our prayers should be for blessings in general, for God knows best what is good for us.

Socrates

Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.

Socrates

Our prayers should be for blessings in general, for God knows best what is good for us.

Socrates

I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.

Socrates

Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for.

Socrates

The end of life is to be like God, and the soul following God will be like Him.

Socrates

By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.

Socrates

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

Socrates

I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm; then they might have an unlimited power for doing good.

Socrates

All men's souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine.

Socrates

Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.

Socrates

Know thyself.

Socrates

Beauty is the bait which with delight allures man to enlarge his kind.

Socrates

The unexamined life is not worth living.

Socrates

Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.

Socrates

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

Socrates

I examined the poets, and I look on them as people whose talent overawes both themselves and others, people who present themselves as wise men and are taken as such, when they are nothing of the sort.

Socrates

True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.

Socrates

The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.

Socrates

As to marriage or celibacy, let a man take which course he will, he will be sure to repent.

Socrates