Socrates Quotes
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To fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise, without being wise: for it is to think that we know what we do not know. For anything that men can tell, death may be the greatest good that can happen to them: but they fear it as if they knew quite well that it was the greatest of evils. And what is this but that shameful ignorance of thinking that we know what we do not know?
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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.
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Is it not, then, better to be ridiculous and friendly than clever and hostile?
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Are not all things which have opposites generated out of their opposites?
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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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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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To be uncertain is to be uncomfortable, but to be certain is to be ridiculous.
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The beginning is the most important part, especially when dealing with anything young and tender.
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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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The alphabet will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls. They will trust the written characters and not remember themselves.
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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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...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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Not I, but the city teaches.
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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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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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A disorderly mob is no more an army than a heap of building materials is a house.
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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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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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Flattery is like a painted armor; only for show.
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Why should I resent it when an ass kicks 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.
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Anybody can be a hellene, by his heart, his mind, his spirit.
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Is there anyone to whom you entrust a greater number of serious matters than your wife? And is there anyone with whom you have fewer conversations?