Socrates Quotes
-
This is...self-knowled ge-for a man to know what he knows, and what he does not know.
-
If we pursue our habit of eating animals, and if our neighbour follows a similar path, will we need to go to war against our neighbour to secure greater pasturage, because ours will not be enough to sustain us, and our neighbour will have a similar need to wage war on us for the same reason.
-
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.
-
Besides, it is a shame to let yourself grow old through neglect before seeing how you can develop the maximum beauty and strength of body; and you can have this experience if your are negligent, because these things don't normally happen by themselves.
-
Do you suppose that I should have lived as long as I have if I had moved in the sphere of public life, and conducting myself in that sphere like an honorable man, had always upheld the cause of right, and conscientiously set this end above all other things? Not by a very long way, gentlemen; neither would any other man.
-
Since I am convinced that I wrong no one, I am not likely to wrong myself.
-
What a lot of things there are a man can do without.
-
If what you want to tell me is neither True nor Good nor even Useful, why tell it to me at all.
-
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.
-
All that I know is nothing - I'm not even sure of that.
-
By far the greatest and most admirable form of wisdom is that needed to plan and beautify cities and human communities.
-
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?
-
Living or dead, to a good man there can come no evil.
-
...in the acquisition of this blessing human nature can find no better helper than Love. I declare that it is the duty of every man to honour Love, and I honour and practice the mysteries of Love in an especial degree myself, and recommend the same to others, and I praise the power and valour of Love to the best of my ability both now and always.
-
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.
-
Marry or marry not, in any either case you'll regret it.
-
Virtue is the nursing-mother of all human pleasures, who, in rendering them just, renders them also pure and permanent; in moderating them, keeps them in breath and appetite; in interdicting those which she herself refuses, whets our desires to those that she allows; and, like a kind and liberal mother, abundantly allows all that nature requires, even to satiety, if not to lassitude.
-
Wealth does not bring about excellence, but excellence brings about wealth and all other public and private blessings for men.
-
In every one of us there are two ruling and directing principles, whose guidance we follow wherever they may lead; the one being an innate desire of pleasure; the other, an acquired judgment which aspires after excellence.
-
It has been shown that to injure anyone is never just anywhere.
-
Wars, factions, and fighting, have no other origin than this same body and its lusts... We must set the soul free from it; we must behold things as they are. And having thus got rid of the foolishness of the body, we shall be pure and hold converse with the pure, and shall in our own selves have complete knowledge of the Incorruptible which is, I take it, no other than the very truth.
-
Slanderers do not hurt me because they do not hit me.
-
So you would rather suffer an injustice than do an injustice?
-
Do not be angry with me if I tell you the truth.