Socrates Quotes

If I had engaged in politics, O men of Athens, I should have perished long ago, and done no good either to you or to myself.

You will know that the divine is so great and of such a nature that it sees and hears everything at once, is present everywhere, and is concerned with everything.

In my investigation in the service of the god I found that those who had the highest reputation were nearly the most deficient, while those who were thought to be inferior were more knowledgeable.

If you will take my advice you will think little of Socrates, and a great deal more of truth.

The examined life is the only life worth living.

So you would rather suffer an injustice than do an injustice?

I know that I know nothing.

What a lot of things there are a man can do without.

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.

Whenever a number of individuals have a common name, we assume them to have also a corresponding idea or form.

There are beds and tables in the world - plenty of them, are there not? But there are only two ideas or forms of them - one the idea of a bed, the other of a table.

To give either to any public matter of interest or to any concern of my own, but I am in utter poverty by reason of my devotion to the god .

Men of Athens, I honor and love you; but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy.

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.

I only know that I know nothing

How can you wonder your travels do you no good, when you carry yourself around with you?

The man who is truly wise knows that he knows very little.

Are not all things which have opposites generated out of their opposites?

When you propose ridiculous things to believe, too many men will choose to believe nothing at all.

The greatest of all mysteries is the man himself.

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

Wealth does not bring about excellence (aka areté), but excellence (aka areté) brings about wealth and all other public and private blessings for men.

The warm love has the coldest end.

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

Anybody can be a hellene, by his heart, his mind, his spirit.

Creation is man's immortality and brings him nearest to the gods.

The nearest way to glory a shortcut, as it were is to strive to be what you wish to be thought to be.

The Spirit is neither good nor bad, it runs where the wild heart leads" "Wisdom begins in wonder.

The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death.

Wisdom belongs in wonder.

All that we know is nothing can be known.

Neither I nor any other man should, on trial or in way, contrive to avoid death at any cost.

God desired to be the real maker of a real bed, not a particular maker of a particular bed, and therefore He created a bed which is essentially and by nature one only.

I only know how little I know

Wonder is the beginning of all wisdom.

Athletics have become professionalized.

As for me, all I know is I know nothing.

True perfection is a bold quest to seek. Only the willing and true of heart will seek the betterment of many.

Often when looking at a mass of things for sale, he would say to himself, 'How many things I have no need of!'

Not by wisdom do they [poets] make what they compose, but by a gift of nature and an inspiration similar to that of the diviners and the oracles.

I know what I do not know.

Whatever authority I may have rests solely on knowing how little I know.

I alone know I am wise because I alone know I know nothing.

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.

True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing. And in knowing that you know nothing, that makes you the smartest of all.

If I can assign names as well as pictures to objects, the right assignment of them we may call truth, and the wrong assignment of them falsehood.

If you will be guided by me, you will make little account of Socrates, and much more of truth.

It seems that God took away the minds of poets that they might better express His.

Living or dead, to a good man there can come no evil.

Not I, but the city teaches.