Top 100 Quotes About Socrates
#1. It is not the purpose of a juryman's office to give justice as a favor to whoever seems good to him, but to judge according to law, and this he has sworn to do.
Socrates
#2. I answer, Socrates, that rhetoric is the art of persuasion in courts of law and other assemblies, as I was just now saying, and about the just and unjust.
Gorgias
#3. The greatest flood has the soonest ebb; the sorest tempest the most sudden calm; the hottest love the coldest end; and from the deepest desire oftentimes ensues the deadliest hate.
Socrates
#4. Before the birth of Love, many fearful things took place through the empire of necessity; but when this god was born, all things rose to men.
Socrates
#5. Aren't you ashamed to be concerned so much about making all the money you can and advancing your reputation and prestige, while for truth and wisdom and the improvement of your souls you have no thought or car?
Socrates
#6. 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
#7. No one does wrong voluntarily.
Socrates
#8. Socrates was a philosopher. He went around pointing out errors in the way things were done. They fed him hemlock.
Gil Amelio
#9. The highest wisdom and the highest genius have been invariably accompanied with cheerfulness. We have sufficient proofs on record that Shakespeare and Socrates were the most festive companions.
Thomas Love Peacock
#10. 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
#11. 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
#12. SOCRATES: For doing evil to another is the same as injuring him? CRITO: Very true. SOCRATES: Then we ought not to retaliate or render evil for evil to anyone, whatever evil we may have suffered from him.
Plato
#13. The true Wisdom is in recognizing our own ignorance.
Socrates
#14. Surely, we are provided with senses as well fitted to penetrate the spaces of the real, the substantial, the eternal, as these outward are to penetrate the material universe. Veias, Menu, Zoroaster, Socrates, Christ, Shakespeare, Swedenborg,
these are some of our astronomers.
Henry David Thoreau
#15. If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it.
Socrates
#16. Socrates: I'm afraid that it might actually be sacrilegious to stand idly by while morality is being denigrated and not try to assist as long as one has breath in one's body and a voice to protest with.
Plato
#17. 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.
Socrates
#18. For comic writers charge Socrates with making the worse appear the better reason.
Quintilian
#19. In the Western tradition, we have focused on teaching as a skill and forgotten what Socrates knew: teaching is a gift, learning is a skill.
Peter Drucker
#20. Socrates didn't care to visit the theater, as a rule, except when the plays of Euripides (which some think, he himself had helped to compose), were performed.
Moses Mendelssohn
#21. Not because Socrates said so, ... I look upon all men as my compatriots.
Michel De Montaigne
#23. I pray Thee, O God, that I may be beautiful within.
Socrates
#24. You're not yet Socrates, but you can still live as if you want to be him.
Epictetus
#25. Socrates may have thought himself to be the wisest in Athens, but King Solomon was the wisest in the world. With all his philosophy Socrates died a poor man, and with all his wisdom King Solomon died a rich man.
Matshona Dhliwayo
#26. Some have courage in pleasures, and some in pains: some in desires, and some in fears, and some are cowards under the same conditions.
Socrates
#27. All I know is that I do not know anything
Socrates
#28. Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.
Socrates
#29. Miss Gregory took nearly everything. Her clothes. New girls don't have the privilege of wearing their own clothes. Her books. Socrates, Plato, Shakespeare? Much too stimulating. No wonder you have Ideas. Certainly, you don't wish to become a bluestocking!
Suzanne Lazear
#30. Would that the majority could inflict the greatest evils, for they would then be capable of the greatest good, and that would be fine, but now they cannot do either. They cannot make a man either wise or foolish, but they inflict things haphazardly.
Socrates
#31. 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
#32. In Socrates' thought the two marks of individual self-consciousness appear; it is practical and it is social.
James Mark Baldwin
#33. It is not living that matters, but living rightly.
Socrates
#34. But now the giant heads of Plato and Socrates, each with an expression of penetrating wisdom carved on his white features, surveyed the river and the melon beds beyond.
J.G. Farrell
#35. The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world, is to be in reality what we would appear to be, all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice and experience of them.
Socrates
#37. Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.
Socrates
#38. 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
#39. Socrates put it perfectly in financial matters at least: "The majority is always wrong.
Peter B. Lockhart
#40. It was far too cold. The second I got out I had this incredible headache, I'm just not used to it. The last time I saw snow was years and years ago.
Socrates
#41. Mankind is made of two kinds of people: wise people who know they're fools, and fools who think they are wise.
Socrates
#42. The Only Thing I Know For Sure Is That I Know Nothing At All, For Sure
Socrates
#43. I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.
Socrates
#44. And Agathon said, It is probable, Socrates, that I knew nothing of what I had said.
And yet spoke you beautifully, Agathon, he said.
Plato
#45. Nobody knows anything, but I, knowing nothing, am the smartest man in the world.
Socrates
#46. Socrates was likewise right that pissing people off is how we first, and maybe best, go about the business of provoking thought.
Mark Kingwell
#47. We are what we think we are
Socrates
#48. Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions; but those who kindly reprove thy faults.
Socrates
#49. Awareness of ignorance is the beginning of wisdom.
Socrates
#50. I will quote Cioran (who is not yet a classic but will become one): "While they were preparing the hemlock, Socrates was learning a tune on the flute. 'What good will it do you,' they asked, 'to know this tune before you die?
Italo Calvino
#51. This sense of wonder is the mark of the philosopher. Philosophy indeed has no other origin.
Socrates
#52. 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
#53. There was a day when writers actually read," he grumbles. "They could quote Keats and Socrates. Now anyone with a keyboard and a fifth-grade education can call themselves a writer.
J. Lincoln Fenn
#54. If every soldier refused to take arms ... there would be no wars; but no one has the courage to be the first to live according to Christ and Socrates, because in a world of opportunists they would be martyred.
Sylvia Plath
#55. O we have not choice but to agree that in each of us are found the same elements and characteristics as are found in the city? After all, where else could the city have got them from?
Socrates
#56. When you want success as badly as you want the air, then you will get it. There is no other secret of success.
Socrates
#57. Did you hear the story of Socrates? He was a philosopher in ancient Greece, so they killed him.
Troy DeNuthe
#58. I am very conscious that I am not wise at all.
Socrates
#59. To be a European is to try to negotiate morally, intellectually and existentially the opposing statements and praxis of the city of Socrates and the city of Isaiah.
George Steiner
#60. When the friendly jailer gave Socrates the poison cup to drink, the jailer said: "Try to bear lightly what needs must be." Socrates did. He faced death with a calmness and resignation that touched the hem of divinity.
Dale Carnegie
#61. My plainness of speech makes them hate me, and what is their hatred but a
proof that I am speaking the truth.
Socrates
#62. If Christianity was morality, Socrates would be the Saviour.
William Blake
#63. The greater the power that deigns to serve you, the more honor it demands of you.
Socrates
#64. As Socrates so philosophically put it, since we don't know what death is, it is illogical to fear it.
Tom Stoppard
#65. Follow the argument wherever it leads.
Socrates
#66. The greatest blessing granted to mankind come by way of madness, which is a divine gift.
Socrates
#67. All wars are fought for the acquisition of wealth
Socrates
#68. all started at the Temple of Apollo In Delphi. One of his friends approached the oracle with the question: "Is anyone wiser than Socrates?" the answer was "No." Socrates was profoundly puzzled by this episode. He claimed to know
Plato
#69. 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
#70. Socrates had a student named Plato, Plato had a student named Aristotle, and Aristotle had a student named Alexander the Great.
Old Tom Morris
#71. Never call yourself a philosopher, nor talk a great deal among the unlearned about theorems, but act conformably to them. Thus, at an entertainment, don't talk how persons ought to eat, but
eat as you ought. For remember that in this manner Socrates also universally avoided all ostentation.
Epictetus
#72. In 80% of Socrates' dialogues there was no constructive outcome. He saw his role as simply pointing out what was wrong.
Edward De Bono
#73. And History will smile to think that this is the species for which Socrates and Jesus Christ died.
Julien Benda
#74. Paul Levinson has outdone himself: The Plot to Save Socrates is a philosophically rich gem full of big ideas and wonderful time-travel tricks.
Robert J. Sawyer
#75. I prefer to be refuted than to refute, for it is a greater good for oneself to be freed from the greatest evil than to free another.
Socrates
#77. 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.
Socrates
#78. I believe that we cannot live better than in seeking to become better, nor more agreeably than having a clear conscience.
Socrates
#79. I shall never fear or avoid things of which I do not know ...
Socrates
#80. 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
#81. The heart of the person before you is a mirror. See there your own form.
Socrates
#82. One's character is one's habitual way of behaving. We all have patterns of behavior or habits, and often we are quite unaware of them. When Socrates urged us to Know thyself, he clearly was directing us to come to know our habitual ways of responding to the world around us.
Thomas Lickona
#83. Neither I nor any other man should, on trial or in way, contrive to avoid death at any cost.
Socrates
#84. Wealth does not bring goodness, but goodness brings wealth and every other blessing, both to the individual and to the state
Socrates
#85. Angels come in many forms, but they always bring the same message
wisdom.
Shannon L. Alder
#86. The only thing I know is that I know nothing, and i am no quite sure that i know that.
Socrates
#87. I only know one thing, and that is I know nothing
Socrates
#88. Do it because it's in your heart. Not because you want something in return. Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.
Socrates
#89. Anybody can be a hellene, by his heart, his mind, his spirit ...
Socrates
#90. The understanding of mathematics is necessary for a sound grasp of ethics.
Socrates
#91. If thou continuous to take delight in idle argumentation thou mayest be qualified to combat with the sophists, but will never know how to live with men.
Socrates
#92. Whoever would have his body supple, easy and healthful should learn to dance.
Socrates
#93. Do not grieve over someone who changes all of the sudden. It might be that he has given up acting and returned to his true self.
Socrates
#94. And what, Socrates, is the food of the soul? Surely, I said, knowledge is the food of the soul.
Plato
#95. All cats die. Socrates is dead. Therefore Socrates is a cat.
Eugene Ionesco
#96. All I know is that I know nothing.
Socrates
#97. I only know, I know nothing
Socrates
#98. Language was just that thing that happened when you opened your mouth at the table, squeezed a few noises out of your vocal chords, and induced Socrates thereby to pass the salt.
Randy Allen Harris
#99. Every reader should remember the diffidence of Socrates, and repair by his candour the injuries of time: he should impute the seeming defects of his author to some chasm of intelligence, and suppose that the sense which is now weak was once forcible
Samuel Johnson
#100. It is extraordinary to think about. We still speak of Socratic or Platonic philosophy, but actually being Plato or Socrates is quite another matter.
Jostein Gaarder
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