The Greek philosopher and logician (one who studies logic or reason) Socrates was an important influence on Plato (427-347 B.C.E. ) and had a major effect on ancient philosophy. Socrates was famous for his method of argumentation and his works often made as many enemies as admirers within Athens. Cicero said that “Socrates brought down philosophy from the heavens to the earth.” Socrates appears to have lived the humblest life. He bought the cheapest food and drink, had no shirt or shoes, and wore the same cloak summer and winter. But this gave him independence to do as he wished, and what he wished was to help himself and others come to greater knowledge and peace of mind.
(469 BC. – c. 399 BC)
– Socrates Quotes –
He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.
~ Socrates
A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.
~ Socrates
An honest man is always a child.
~ Socrates
All men’s souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine.
~ Socrates
As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.
~ Socrates
Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior.
~ Socrates
Be as you wish to seem.
~ Socrates
Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm and constant.
~ Socrates
I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.
~ Socrates
Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.
~ Socrates
Beware the barrenness of a busy life.
~ 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
I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.
~ 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
If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it.
~ Socrates
If all misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart.
~ Socrates
It is not living that matters, but living rightly.
~ Socrates
Let him that would move the world first move himself.
~ Socrates
Beauty is the bait which with delight allures man to enlarge his kind.
~ Socrates
Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.
~ Socrates
The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.
~ Socrates
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
~ Socrates
Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.
~ Socrates
True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.
~ Socrates
True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.
~ Socrates
As to marriage or celibacy, let a man take which course he will, he will be sure to repent.
~ 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
Our prayers should be for blessings in general, for God knows best what is good for us.
~ Socrates
The end of life is to be like God, and the soul following God will be like Him.
~ Socrates
The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.
~ Socrates
Are you not ashamed of heaping up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation, and caring so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul?
~ Socrates
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.
~ 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
He is a man of courage who does not run away, but remains at his post and fights against the enemy.
~ Socrates
The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.
~ Socrates
My advice to you is get married: if you find a good wife you’ll be happy; if not, you’ll become a philosopher.
~ 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
The poets are only the interpreters of the Gods.
~ Socrates
Man must rise above the Earth – to the top of the atmosphere and beyond – for only thus will he fully understand the world in which he lives.
~ Socrates
False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.
~ Socrates
Wisdom begins in wonder.
~ Socrates
I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.
~ Socrates
From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.
~ Socrates
Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.
~ Socrates
The unexamined life is not worth living.
~ Socrates
To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.
~ Socrates
I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.
~ 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
Death is one of two things. Either it is annihilation, and the dead have no consciousness of anything; or, as we are told, it is really a change: a migration of the soul from one place to another.
~ Socrates
No one knows whether death may not even turn out to be the greatest blessings of human beings. And yet people fear it as if they knew for certain it is the greatest evil.
~ Socrates
