Socrates Quotes
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Man's life is like a drop of dew on a leaf.
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Whom do I call educated? First, those who manage well the circumstances they encounter day by day. Next, those who are decent and honorable in their intercourse with all men, bearing easily and good naturedly what is offensive in others and being as agreeable and reasonable to their associates as is humanly possible to be... those who hold their pleasures always under control and are not ultimately overcome by their misfortunes... those who are not spoiled by their successes, who do not desert their true selves but hold their ground steadfastly as wise and sober - minded men.
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I was afraid that by observing objects with my eyes and trying to comprehend them with each of my other senses I might blind my soul altogether.
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I am confident that there truly is such a thing as living again, that the living spring from the dead, and that the souls of the dead are in existence.
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To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.
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For who is there but you? - who not only claim to be a good man and a gentleman, for many are this, and yet have not the power of making others good. Whereas you are not only good yourself, but also the cause of goodness in others.
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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.
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I call that man idle who might be better employed.
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I am quite ready to acknowledge . . . that I ought to be grieved at death, if I were not persuaded that I am going to other gods who are wise and good, and to men departed who are better than those whom I leave behind. And therefore I do not grieve as I might have done, for I have good hope that there is yet something remaining for the dead.
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The tongue of a fool is the key of his counsel, which, in a wise man, wisdom hath in keeping.
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In childhood be modest, in youth temperate, in adulthood just, and in old age prudent.
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The partisan when he is engaged in a dispute, cares nothing about the rights of the question, but is anxious only to convince his hearers of his own assertions.
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My friend...care for your psyche...know thyself, for once we know ourselves, we may learn how to care for ourselves.
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Only the extremely ignorant or the extremely intelligent can resist change.
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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.
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How can you wonder your travels do you no good, when you carry yourself around with you?
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Antiphon, as another man gets pleasure from a good horse, or a dog, or a bird, I get even more pleasure from good friends. And if I have something good, I teach it to them, and I introduce them to others who will be useful to them with respect to virtue. And together with my friends I go through the treasures of wise men of old which they left behind written in books, and we peruse them. If we see something good, we pick it out and hold it to be a great profit, if we are able to prove useful to one another.
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One who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice.
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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.
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Is it not, then, better to be ridiculous and friendly than clever and hostile?
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Wisest is he who knows he knows not.
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I am a Citizen of the World, and my Nationality is Goodwill.
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I have lived long enough to learn how much there is I can really do without.... He is nearest to God who needs the fewest things.
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To be uncertain is to be uncomfortable, but to be certain is to be ridiculous.