Life Socrates Quotes

#1. Men who have seen life and death ... as an unbroken continuum, the swinging pendulum, have been able to move as freely into death as they walked through life. Socrates went to the grave almost perplexed by his companions' tears.

Voltaire

#2. I started asking the big questions that I had asked in college, that my compatriots the Greek philosophers had asked, like 'what is a good life?' Socrates famously said that 'The unexamined life is not worth living.' I started asking these questions from the starting point of 'what is success?'

Arianna Huffington

#3. Anyone who can look me in the eye and say they prefer the story of Moses or Jesus or Mohammed to the life of Socrates is intellectually defective.

Christopher Hitchens

#4. Yes, if the life and death of Socrates are those of a wise man, the life and death of Jesus are those of a god.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

#5. 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

#6. Life is legal tender, and individual character stamps its value. We are from a thousand mints, and all genuine. Despite our infinitely diverse appraisements, we make change for one another. So many ideals planted are worth the great gold of Socrates; so many impious laws broken are worth John Brown.

Louise Imogen Guiney

#7. Socrates was the first to call philosophy down from the heavens and to place it in cities, and even to introduce it into homes and compel it to inquire about life and standards and goods and evils.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

#8. Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living. But the over-examined life makes you wish you were dead. Given the alternative, I'd rather be living.

Saul Bellow

#9. Socrates ... is the first philosopher of life [Lebensphilosoph], ... Thinking serves life, while among all previous philosophers life had served thought and knowledge ... Thus Socratic philosophy is absolutely practical: it is hostile to all knowledge unconnected to ethical implications.

Friedrich Nietzsche

#10. For philosophy, Socrates, if pursued in moderation and at the proper age, is an elegant accomplishment, but too much philosophy is the ruin of human life.

Plato

#11. What screws us up the most in life is the picture in our head of what it's supposed to be.

Socrates

#12. We all know that the un-examined life is not worth living (socrates). But if all you are doing is examining, you are not living.

Adam Leipzig

#13. What do you think Socrates meant when he said, "The unexamined life is not worth living"? Third,

Karen Armstrong

#14. You may not be rich with money, Socrates was not, your life still has tremendous value.

Debasish Mridha

#15. Marry a good woman, and be happy the rest of your life. Or, marry a bad, and become a good philosopher

Socrates

#16. Intelligent individuals learn from every thing and every one; average people, from their experiences. The stupid already have all the answers.

Socrates

#17. A man doesn't like to have his ego popped, especially when he prides himself on his sagacity, and then to be proved wrong by a man who claims he doesn't know anything.

E.A. Bucchianeri

#18. While most would agree with Socrates that, "the unexamined life is not worth living," a lesser-known quote by Sheldon Kopp might be more important here: "The unlived life is not worth examining.

Meg Jay

#19. Be of good hope in the face of death. Believe in this one truth for certain, that no evil can befall a good man either in life or death, and that his fate is not a matter of indifference to the gods.

Socrates

#20. The creation story is ridiculous garbage. And has given us a completely false picture of our origin as a species and the origins of the cosmos. If you want a good mythical story it would be the life of Socrates.

Christopher Hitchens

#21. A Life without criticism and status is not a worth living.

Socrates

#22. Pythagoras, Locke, Socrates - but pages might be filled up, as vainly as before, with the sad usage of all sorts of sages, who in his life-time, each was deemed a bore! The loftiest minds outrun their tardy ages.

Lord Byron

#23. Socrates insisted that there's a strong connection between your philosophy (how you interpret the world, what you think is important in life) and your mental and physical health. Different beliefs lead to different emotional states...

Jules Evans

#24. Socrates had it wrong; it is not the unexamined but finally the uncommitted life that is not worth living.

William Sloane Coffin

#25. Be true to thine own self

Socrates

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

Socrates

#27. Neither Christ nor Buddha nor Socrates wrote a book, for to do so is to exchange life for a logical process.

William Butler Yeats

#28. It is possible that a man could live twice as long if he didn't spend the first half of his life acquiring habits that shortens the other half

Socrates

#29. Such as thy words are, such will thy affections be esteemed; and such will thy deeds be as thy affections and such thy life as thy deeds.

Socrates

#30. An unexamined life is a life of no account.

Socrates

#31. It is only in death that we are truly cured of the 'sickness' of life.

Socrates

#32. Socrates once said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." I would expand on his thought by suggesting, "The unexamined society is not worth living in.

Eileen Workman

#33. Life without enquiry is not worth living.

Socrates

#34. Socrates asked the key question:
why should we be moral?

Arundhati Roy

#35. We have no proof that Socrates ever existed. We only know from witnesses to his life that he did. Like Jesus, he never wrote anything down. It doesn't matter to me whether he did or not exist because we have his teachings, his method of thinking, and his extreme intellectual and moral courage.

Christopher Hitchens

#36. Socrates told us, "the unexamined life is not worth living." I think he's calling for curiosity, more than knowledge. In every human society at all times and at all levels, the curious are at the leading edge.

Roger Ebert

#37. As Socrates I believe said the unexamined life is not worth living. I believe that's true. I do believe that.

Joy Behar

#38. Socrates defines his life's mission as awakening the Athenians to the supreme importance of attending to their souls. His timeless plea that we connect to ourselves remains the only way for any of us to truly thrive.

Arianna Huffington

#39. 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

#40. What Socrates called the "unexamined life" that is "not worth living" now seems to be the life more people have slipped into than ever before.

Os Guinness

#41. The real danger in life is not death, but living an evil life.

Socrates

#42. A good man cannot be harmed either in life or in death, and that his affairs are not neglected by the gods.

Socrates

#43. Poetry, it is often said and loudly so, is life's true mirror. But a monkey looking into a work of literature looks in vain for Socrates.

Franz Grillparzer

#44. He could very likely have appealed for leniency. At least he could have saved his life by agreeing to leave Athens. But had he done this he would not have been Socrates. He valued his conscience
and the truth
higher than life.

Jostein Gaarder

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

Socrates

#46. The life of which meaning one never ponders is not worth living

Socrates

#47. The wise man seeks death all his life, and for this reason death is not terrifying to him.

Socrates

#48. God does not deal directly with man: it is by means of spirits that all the intercourse and communication of gods with men, both in waking life and in sleep, is carried on.

Socrates

#49. Man's life is like a drop of dew on a leaf.

Socrates

#50. An unconsidered life is not one worth living.

Socrates

#51. There was a Socratic style of life (which the Cynics were to imitate), and the Socratic dialogue was an exercise which brought Socrates' interlocutor to put himself in question, to take care of himself, and to make his soul as beautiful and wise as possible.

Pierre Hadot

#52. Normally, if someone's legacy will outlast their life, it's apparent when they die. On the day when Alexander the Great, or Caesar Augustus, or Napoleon, or Socrates, or Muhammad died, their reputations were immense. When Jesus died, his tiny, failed movement appeared clearly at an end.

John Ortberg

#53. ...[W]hen death comes to a man, the mortal part of him dies, but the immortal part retires at the approach of death and escapes unharmed and indestructible... [I]t is as certain as anything can be... that soul is immortal and imperishable, and that our souls will really exist in the next world.

Socrates

#54. 99 per cent of your life recognises things without definition, a baby recognises its mother's face without having it defined. It's just an arbitrary rule this rule of definition that Socrates set down.

Robert M. Pirsig

#55. Plato says that the unexamined life is not worth living. But what if the examined life turns out to be a clunker as well?

Kurt Vonnegut

#56. By far the greatest and most admirable form of wisdom is that needed to plan and beautify cities and human communities.

Socrates

#57. A philosopher knows that in reality he knows very little. That is why he constantly strives to achieve true insight. Socrates was one of these rare people. He knew that he knew nothing about life and about the world. And now comes the important part: it troubled him that he knew so little.

Jostein Gaarder

#58. Sometimes you have to let go to see if there was anything worth holding onto.

Socrates

#59. I have not sought during my life to amass wealth and to adorn my body, but I have sought to adorn my soul with the jewels of wisdom, patience, and above all with a love of liberty.

Socrates

#60. Nay, Socrates," said Glaucon, "the measure of listening to such discussions is the whole of life for reasonable men". The Republic, 450c.

Plato

#61. Millions of people, in all walks of life and in every endeavor, create distractions and excuses for themselves by focusing on tools rather than on character. They'd rather, as Socrates warned, focus on what they have than on what they are.

Eric Greitens

#62. Socrates said the perfect society would be based on a great lie. People would be told that lie from the cradle, and they would believe it, because human beings need to make order out of chaos.

Anne Frasier

#63. 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.

Socrates

#64. Buddha, Confucius, or Socrates can bring us good teaching, moral excellence, and religious philosophy. For this they may be commended as rendering help and aid to humanity. But Jesus Christ is different: He brings us Himself as our Life.

Chip Brogden

#65. Winning or losing achieves the same result
change.

Shannon L. Alder

#66. Even Socrates, who lived a very frugal and simple life, loved to go to the market. When his students asked about this, he replied, I love to go and see all the things I am happy without.

Jack Kornfield

#67. All I know is that I do not know anything

Socrates

#68. William James said, "You cannot travel without until you have travelled within." Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." People who discover their sweet spot are people who take the inward journey and examine themselves. They make the choice to live until they die.

Scott M. Fay

#69. Socrates said that an unexamined life is not worth living. But you know, an over-examined life can be a real crap festival, too.

Alex Bosworth

#70. In a speech, the columnist Charles Krauthammer ... offered a new version of Socrates' famous saying, "The unexamined life is not worth living." In our age of bottomless self-love and obsession with our own feelings, Krauthammer suggested, "The too-examined life is not worth living either.

John Leo

#71. A library, to modify the famous metaphor of Socrates, should be the delivery room for the birth of ideas - a place where history comes to life.

Norman Cousins

#72. Do not go through life like leaf blown from here to there believing whatever you are told.

Socrates

#73. Wow. She's like a mini-Socrates with all this life advice. I feel like I should be taking notes. Or debating with her.

Colleen Hoover

#74. Beloved Pan and all ye other gods who haunt this place, give me beauty in the inward soul, and may the outward and the inner man be at one.

Socrates

#75. The world's a puzzle; no need to make sense out of it. - Socrates

Dan Millman

#76. Remember what is unbecoming to do is also unbecoming to speak of.

Socrates

#77. 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

#78. I conceived 'All Is Song' as a modernised, loosely interpreted version of Socrates's life.

Samantha Harvey

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

Socrates

#80. The end of life is to be like unto God; and the soul following God, will be like unto Him; He being the beginning, middle, and end of all things.

Socrates

#81. Socrates' way of life is the consequence of his recognition that we can know what it is that we do not know about the most important things and that we are by nature obliged to seek that knowledge.

Allan Bloom

#82. The soul is pure when it leaves the body and drags nothing bodily with it, by virtue of having no willing association with the body in life but avoiding it ... Practicing philosophy in the right way is a training to die easily.

Socrates

#83. The unexamined life, said Socrates, is unfit to be lived by man. This is the virtue of liberty, and the ground on which we may justify our belief in it, that it tolerates error in order to serve truth.

Walter Lippmann

#84. As a Roman philosopher, Cicero, said of him a few hundred years later, Socrates 'called philosophy down from the sky and established her in the towns and introduced her into homes and forced her to investigate life, ethics, good and evil.

Jostein Gaarder

#85. Beware the barrenness of a busy life.

Socrates

#86. The examined life is the only life worth living.

Socrates

#87. The lies of centuries, the lies of love,
the lies of Socrates and Blake and Christ
will be your bedmates and tombstones
in a death that will never end.

Charles Bukowski

#88. It is commonly a dangerous thing for a man to have more sense than his neighbors. Socrates paid for his superiority with his life; and if Aristotle saved his skin, it was by taking to his heels in time.

Christoph Martin Wieland

#89. Socrates had no system to teach. Throughout, his philosophy was a spiritual exercise, an invitation to a new way of life, active reflection, and living consciousness.

Pierre Hadot

#90. Socrates, one of the greatest philosophers of all time, took his whole life to get to the point where he said, As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.

Miguel Ruiz

#91. 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

#92. Athens is like a sluggish horse, and I am the gadfly trying to sting it into life.

Jostein Gaarder