Socrates Quotes (137 Quotes)

Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity.

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

Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius will you remember to pay the debt.

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

Fame is the perfume of heroic deeds.

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

The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms.

Let him that would move the world first move himself.

What a lot of things there are a man can do without.

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

Pay attention to the young, and make them just as good as possible.

An education obtained with money is worse than no education at all

Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions, but those who kindly reprove thy faults.

An honest man is always a child.

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

A man should inure himself to voluntary labor, and not give up to indulgence and pleasure, as they beget no good constitution of body nor knowledge of mind.

Happiness is unrepented pleasure.

Bad men live to eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink in order to live.

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

Wisdom begins in wonder.

The nearest way to glory is to strive to be what you wish to be thought to be.

A multitude of books distracts the mind.

I thought to myself, 'I am wiser than this man neither of us knows anything that is really worthwhile, but he thinks he has knowledge when he has not, while I, having no knowledge, do not think that I have. I seem, at any rate, to be a little wiser than he is on this point I do not think that I know what I do not know.

From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.

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

Could I climb the highest place in Athens, I would lift my voice and proclaim, 'Fellow citizens, why do you turn and scrape every stone to gather wealth and take so little care of your children to whom one day you must relinquish it all'

But already it is time to depart, for me to die, for you to go on living which of us takes the better course, is concealed from anyone except God.

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

He is not only idle who does nothing, but he is idle who might be better employed.

The unexamined life is not worth living.

Call no man unhappy until he is married.

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.

In childhood be modest, in youth temperate, in adulthood just, and in old age prudent.

And in knowing that you know nothing, that makes you the smartest of all.

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

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.

We too must endure and persevere in the inquiry, and then courage will not laugh at our faintheartedness in searching for courage which after all may, very likely, be endurance.

Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.

The Ancient oracle said I was the wisest of all the Greeks. It is because I alone, of all the Greeks, know that I know nothing.

Give me beauty in the inward soul may the outward and the inward man be at one.

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.

And I say let a man be of good cheer about his soul. When the soul has been arrayed in her own proper jewels temperance and justice, and courage, and nobility and truth she is ready to go on her journey when the hour comes.

Living well and beautifully and justly are all one thing.

Nothing is to be preferred before justice.

Slanderers do not hurt me because they do not hit me.

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.

If you can do only a little. Do what you can. What you cannot enforce, do not command.

True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.

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

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