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Quotes by Socrates


To find yourself, think for yourself.
– Socrates

The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.
– Socrates

What screws us up the most in life is the picture in our head of what it's supposed to be.
– Socrates
To fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise, without being wise: for it is to think that we know what we do not know. For anything that men can tell, death may be the greatest good that can happen to them: but they fear it as if they know quite well that it was the greatest of evils. And what is this but that shameful ignorance of thinking that we know what we do not know?
– Socrates
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
Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.
– Socrates
I must first know myself, as the Delphian inscription says; to be curious about that which is not my concern, while I am still in ignorance of my own self, would be ridiculous. And therefore I bid farewell to all this; the common opinion is enough for me. For, as I was saying, I want to know not about this, but about myself: am I a monster more complicated and swollen with passion than the serpent Typho, or a creature of a gentler and simpler sort, to whom Nature has given a diviner and lowlier destiny?
– Socrates
The unexamined life is not worth living.
– Socrates
Wisdom begins in wonder.
– Socrates
Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.
– Socrates
Do not do to others what angers you if done to you by others.
– Socrates
Envy is the ulcer of the soul.
– Socrates
Get not your friends by bare compliments, but by giving them sensible tokens of your love.
– Socrates
Regard your good name as the richest jewel you can possibly be possessed of - for credit is like fire; when once you have kindled it you may easily preserve it, but if you once extinguish it, you will find it an arduous task to rekindle it again.
– Socrates
Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity.
– Socrates
Remember what is unbecoming to do is also unbecoming to speak of.
– Socrates
The shortest and surest way to live with honour in the world, is to be in reality what we would appear to be; and if we observe, we shall find, that all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice of them.
– Socrates
Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions; but those who kindly reprove thy faults.
– Socrates
Thou shouldst eat to live; not live to eat.
– Socrates
Having the fewest wants, I am nearest to the gods.
– Socrates
I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.
– Socrates
I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.
– 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
I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your persons or your properties, but and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul. I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue comes money and every other good of man, public as well as private. This is my teaching, and if this is the doctrine which corrupts the youth, I am a mischievous person.
– Socrates
The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways--I to die and you to live. Which is the better, only God knows.
– 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
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
The end of life is to be like God, and the soul following God will be like Him.
– Socrates
Our prayers should be for blessings in general, for God knows best what is good for us.
– 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
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 know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.
– Socrates
He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.
– Socrates
He is a man of courage who does not run away, but remains at his post and fights against the enemy.
– 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
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
Beware the barrenness of a busy life.
– Socrates
Beauty is the bait which with delight allures man to enlarge his kind.
– Socrates
Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.
– Socrates
Be slow to fall into friendship but when thou art in, continue firm and constant.
– Socrates
As to marriage or celibacy, let a man take which course he will, he will be sure to repent.
– Socrates
All men's souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine.
– Socrates
The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.
– Socrates