Socrates Quotes - 30 quotes

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Socrates

Socrates (c. 470 – 399 BC) is hailed as one of the founders of Western philosophy. He is renowned for his contributions to epistemology, ethics, and for his method of questioning, now known as the Socratic method. He was born around 470 BCE in Athens, Greece. Socrates did not write any philosophic... show more

quote icon I only wish that wisdom were the kind of thing that flowed ... from the vessel that was full to the one that was empty.

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quote icon In every one of us there are two ruling and directing principles, whose guidance we follow wherever they may lead; the one being an innate desire of pleasure; the other, an acquired judgment which aspires after excellence.

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quote icon Let all my external possessions be in friendly harmony with what is within. May I consider the wise man rich. As for gold, let me have as much as a moderate man could bear and carry with him.

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quote icon Nothing is to be preferred before justice

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quote icon I myself know nothing, except just a little, enough to extract an argument from another man who is wise and to receive it fairly.

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quote icon Anyone who holds a true opinion without understanding is like a blind man on the right road.

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quote icon The inexperienced in wisdom and virtue, ever occupied with feasting and such, are carried downward, and there, as is fitting, they wander their whole life long, neither ever looking upward to the truth above them nor rising toward it, nor tasting pure and lasting pleasures. Like cattle, always looking downward with their heads bent toward the ground and the banquet tables, they feed, fatten, and fornicate. In order to increase their possessions they kick and butt with horns and hoofs of steel and kill each other, insatiable as they are.

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quote icon The same dream came to me sometimes in one form, and sometimes in another, but always saying the same or nearly the same words: Make and cultivate music, said the dream. And hitherto I imagined that this was only intended to exhort and encourage me in the study of philosophy, which has always been the pursuit of my life, and is the noblest and best of music.

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quote icon There is a doctrine uttered in secret that a man is a prisoner who has no right to open the door to his prison and run away; this is a great mystery which I do not understand. Yet I too, believe that the gods are our guardians, and that we are a possession of theirs. ...And if one of your possessions, an ox or an ass, for example took the liberty of putting himself out of the way when you had given no intimation of your wish that he should die, would you not be angry with him, and would you not punish him if you could? ...Then there may be reason in saying that a man should wait, and not take his own life until God summons him, as he is now summoning me.

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quote icon The true disciple of philosophy is likely to be misunderstood by other men.

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quote icon The body is a source of endless trouble to us by reason of the mere requirement of food; and is also liable to diseases which overtake and impede us in the search after truth: and by filling us so full of loves, and lusts, and fears, and fancies, and idols, and every sort of folly, prevents our ever having, as people say, so much as a thought.

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quote icon Whence come wars, and fighting, and factions? whence but from the body and the lusts of the body? For wars are occasioned by the love of money, and money has to be acquired for the sake and in service of the body; and in consequence of all these things, the time which ought to be given to philosophy is lost.

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quote icon And now that the hour of departure is appointed to me, this is the hope with which I depart, and not I only, but every man that believes that he has his mind purified.

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quote icon ...do not courageous men endure death because they are afraid of yet greater evils?

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quote icon ...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 or temperance or justice.

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quote icon If the knowledge which we acquired before birth was lost to us at birth, and afterwards by the use of the senses we recovered that which we previously knew, will not that which we call learning be a process of recovering our knowledge, and may not this be rightly termed recollection by us? ... our souls must have existed before they were in the form of man—without bodies, and must have had intelligence.

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quote icon He who is a philosopher or lover of learning, and is entirely pure at departing, is alone permitted to reach the gods.

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quote icon They who have a care of their souls, and do not merely live in the fashions of the body, say farewell to all this; they will not walk in the ways of the blind: and when philosophy offers them purification and release from evil, they feel that they ought not resist her influence, and to her they incline, and whither she leads they follow her.

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quote icon I seized the books and read them as fast as I could in my eagerness to know the better and the worse.

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quote icon If death had only been the end of all, the wicked would have had a good bargain in dying, for they would have been happily quit not only of their body, but of their own evil together with their souls. But now, as the soul plainly appears to be immortal, there is no release or salvation from evil except the attainment of the highest virtue and wisdom.

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

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quote icon Does teaching consist in putting questions? Indeed, the secret of your system has just this instant dawned upon me. I seem to see the principle in which you put your questions. You lead me through the field of my own knowledge, and then by pointing out analogies to what I know, persuade me that I really know some things which hitherto, as I believed, I had no knowledge of.

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quote icon The man who eats with the greatest appetite has the least need of delicacies.

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quote icon Those who want fewest things are nearest to the Gods.

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quote icon It is a good thing for a man to offer himself cheerfully to the attacks of the comic writers; for then, if they say anything worth hearing, one will be able to mend; and if they do not, then all they say is unimportant.

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quote icon When his wife said to him: “You die undeservedly.” Socrates replied “Would you, then, have had me deserve death?”

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quote icon If all our misfortunes were laid in one heap, whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be content to take their own and depart.

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

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quote icon The unexamined life is not worth living.

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quote icon Beware the barrenness of a busy life.

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