Socrates Quotes
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Are not all things which have opposites generated out of their opposites?
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I am a Citizen of the World, and my Nationality is Goodwill.
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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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Is it not, then, better to be ridiculous and friendly than clever and hostile?
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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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The individual leads in order that those who are led can develop their potential as human beings and thereby prosper.
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...one thing I am ready to fight for as long as I can, in word and act: that is, that we shall be better, braver and more active men if we believe it right to look for what we don't know than if we believe there is no point in looking because what we don't know we can never discover.
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The beginning is the most important part, especially when dealing with anything young and tender.
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To be uncertain is to be uncomfortable, but to be certain is to be ridiculous.
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Four things belong to a judge: to hear courteously, to answer wisely, to consider soberly, and to decide impartially.
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Before the birth of Love, many fearful things took place through the empire of necessity; but when this god was born, all things rose to men.
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What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?
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I soon realized that poets do not compose their poems with knowledge, but by some inborn talent and by inspiration, like seers and prophets who also say many fine things without any understanding of what they say.
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Not I, but the city teaches.
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Listen not to a tale-bearer or slanderer, for he tells thee nothing out of good-will; but as he discovereth of the secrets of others, so he will of thine in turn.
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The Delphic Oracle said I was the wisest of all the Greeks. It is because that I alone, of all the Greeks, know that I know nothing.
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The alphabet will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls. They will trust the written characters and not remember themselves.
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Flattery is like a painted armor; only for show.
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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.
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A disorderly mob is no more an army than a heap of building materials is a house.
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One ought not to return injustice, nor do evil to anybody in the world, no matter what one may have suffered from them.
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The soul then, as being immortal, and having been born again many times, and having seen all things that exist, whether in this world or in the world below, has knowledge of them all . . . all enquiry and all learning is but recollection.
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My divine sign indicates the future to me.
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One should never do wrong in return, nor mistreat any man, no matter how one has been mistreated by him.