Socrates Quotes

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

The poets are only the interpreters of the gods.

Four things belong to a judge: to hear courteously, to answer wisely, to consider soberly, and to decide impartially.

To harm another is to harm oneself

Pride divides the men, humility joins them.

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

The universe really is motion & nothing else.

They are not only idle who do nothing, but they are idle also who might be better employed.

Why do you wonder that globetrotting does not help you, seeing that you always take yourself with you? The reason that set you wandering is ever at your heels.

See one promontory, one mountain, one sea, one river and see all.

The greater the power that deigns to serve you, the more honor it demands of you.

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

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

Since I am convinced that I wrong no one, I am not likely to wrong myself.

Some have courage in pleasures, and some in pains: some in desires, and some in fears, and some are cowards under the same conditions.

The greatest blessing granted to mankind come by way of madness, which is a divine gift.

The misuse of language induces evil in the soul.

The perfect human being is all human beings put together, it is a collective, it is all of us together that make perfection.

There is but one evil, ignorance.

All thinking begins with wondering

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

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

Wisest is he who knows he knows not.

The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms.

Just as you ought not to attempt to cure eyes without head or head without body, so you should not treat body without soul.

A man can no more make a safe use of wealth without reason than he can of a horse without a bridle.

How many things are there which I do not want.

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

Flattery is like a painted armor; only for show.

Nothing is to be preferred before justice.

All things in moderation, including moderation.

Admitting one's ignorance is the first step in acquiring knowledge.

No man undertakes a trade he has not learned, even the meanest; yet everyone thinks himself sufficiently qualified for the hardest of all trades, that of government.

A disorderly mob is no more an army than a heap of building materials is a house

The hardest task needs the lightest hand or else its completion will not lead to freedom but to a tyranny much worse than the one it replaces.

It is never right to do wrong or to requite wrong with wrong, or when we suffer evil to defend ourselves by doing evil in return.

What a lot of things I don't need.

Who knows if to live is to be dead, and to be dead, to live? And we really, it may be, are dead; in fact I once heard sages say that we are now dead, and the body is our tomb.

The understanding of mathematics is necessary for a sound grasp of ethics.

Beauty comes first. Victory is secondary. What matters is joy.

Through your rags I see your vanity.

I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.

Wind buffs up empty bladders; opinion, fools.

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.

Our purpose in founding the city was not to make any one class in it surpassingly happy, but to make the city as a whole as happyas possible.

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.

It is the greatest good for an individual to discuss virtue (aka areté) every day...for the unexamined life is not worth living.

The right way to begin is to pay attention to the young, and make them just as good as possible.

Wisdom is knowing when you don't know

I call that man idle who might be better employed.