Quotes by Socrates

"Death may be the greatest of all human blessings."

Socrates on death
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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?"

Socrates on death
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"The hour of departure has arrived and we go our ways; I to die, and you to live. Which is better? Only God knows."

Socrates on death
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"If I tell you that I would be disobeying the god and on that account it is impossible for me to keep quiet, you won't be persuaded by me, taking it that I am ionizing. And if I tell you that it is the greatest good for a human being to have discussions every day about virtue and the other things you hear me talking about, examining myself and others, and that the unexamined life is not livable for a human being, you will be even less persuaded."

Socrates on debate   

"Whenever, therefore, people are deceived and form opinions wide of the truth, it is clear that the error has slid into their minds through the medium of certain resemblances to that truth."

Socrates on deception   

"Life contains but two tragedies. One is not to get your heart's desire; the other is to get it."

Socrates on desire
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"The fewer our wants the more we resemble the Gods."

Socrates on desire
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"False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil."

Socrates on dishonesty
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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."

Socrates on education
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"An education obtained with money is worse than no education at all"

Socrates on education
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"Enjoy yourself -- it's later than you think."

Socrates on joy
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"The envious person grows lean with the fatness of their neighbor."

Socrates on envy
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"There is only one good -- knowledge; and only one evil -- ignorance."

Socrates on evil
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"Fame is the perfume of heroic deeds."

Socrates on fame   

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"Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?"

Socrates on famous last words
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"Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior."

Socrates on feminism
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"Worthless people love only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live."

Socrates on food and eating
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"Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm and constant."

Socrates on friends and friendship
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"The nearest way to glory is to strive to be what you wish to be thought to be."

Socrates on glory
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"The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance."

Socrates on evil   

"No man undertakes a trade he has not learned, even the meanest; yet everyone thinks himself sufficiently qualified for the hardest of all trades, that of government."

Socrates on government
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"Wars and revolutions and battles are due simply and solely to the body and its desires. All wars are undertaken for the acquisition of wealth; and the reason why we have to acquire wealth is the body, because we are slaves in its service."

Socrates on greed   

"The unexamined life is not worth living."

Socrates on growth
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"Happiness is unrepentant pleasure."

Socrates on happiness   

"Call no man unhappy until he is married."

Socrates on happiness
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"From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate."

Socrates on hatred
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"I am not an Athenian, nor a Greek, but a citizen of the world."

Socrates on humankind
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"The comic and the tragic lie inseparably close, like light and shadow."

Socrates on humor
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"Let him that would move the world, first move himself."

Socrates on influence
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"Nothing is to be preferred before justice."

Socrates on justice   

"We are in fact convinced that if we are ever to have pure knowledge of anything, we must get rid of the body and contemplate things by themselves with the soul by itself. It seems, to judge from the argument, that the wisdom which we desire and upon which we profess to have set our hearts will be attainable only when we are dead and not in our lifetime."

Socrates on knowledge   

"One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing."

Socrates on knowledge
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"The end of life is to be like God, and the soul following God will be like Him."

Socrates on life   

"An unexamined life is not worth living."

Socrates on life   

"In childhood be modest, in youth temperate, in adulthood just, and in old age prudent."

Socrates on life
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"Nature has given us two ears, two eyes, and but one tongue-to the end that we should hear and see more than we speak."

Socrates on listening
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"The hottest love has the coldest end."

Socrates on love
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"I pray Thee, O God, that I may be beautiful within."

Socrates on love
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"When desire, having rejected reason and overpowered judgment which leads to right, is set in the direction of the pleasure which beauty can inspire, and when again under the influence of its kindred desires it is moved with violent motion towards the beauty of corporeal forms, it acquires a surname from this very violent motion, and is called love."

Socrates on love   

"By all means marry. If you get a good wife you will become happy, and if you get a bad one you will become a philosopher."

Socrates on marriage
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