Quotes by Socrates

"A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true."

Socrates on morality   

"See one promontory, one mountain, one sea, one river and see all."

Socrates on nature   

"Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death."

Socrates on philosophers and philosophy   

"I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live."

Socrates on politics
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"How many are the things I can do without!"

Socrates on possessions
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"I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm; then they might have an unlimited power for doing good."

Socrates on potential   

"Our prayers should be for blessings in general, for God knows best what is good for us."

Socrates on prayer
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"They are not only idle who do nothing, but they are idle also who might be better employed."

Socrates on purpose
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"The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear."

Socrates on reputation   

"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."

Socrates on respectability   

"If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it."

Socrates on riches
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"He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have."

Socrates on riches
4 fans of this quote   

"Know thyself."

Socrates on knowledge
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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."

Socrates on senses
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"Slanderers do not hurt me because they do not hit me."

Socrates on slander
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"Beauty is a short-lived tyranny."

Socrates on beauty   

"A multitude of books distracts the mind."

Socrates on books - reading   

"Remember, no human condition is ever permanent. Then you will not be overjoyed in good fortune nor too scornful in misfortune."

Socrates on change
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"I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think."

Socrates on teacher
10 fans of this quote   

"To find yourself, think for yourself."

Socrates on thoughts and thinking
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"What a lot of things there are a man can do without."

Socrates on wealth   

"The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms."

Socrates on wisdom
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"True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us."

Socrates on wisdom
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"Well I am certainly wiser than this man. It is only too likely that neither of us has any knowledge to boast of; but he thinks that he knows something which he does not know, whereas I am quite conscious of my ignorance. At any rate it seems that I am wiser than he is to this small extent, that I do not think that I know what I do not know."

Socrates on wisdom
3 fans of this quote   

"Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for."

Socrates on writers and writing   

"He is rich who is content with the least; for contentment is the wealth of nature."

Socrates on contentment
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"Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty."

Socrates on contentment
4 fans of this quote   

"Give me beauty in the inward soul; may the outward and the inward man be at one."

Socrates on control   

"Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions, but those who kindly reprove thy faults."

Socrates on correction   

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers. "

Socrates on uncategorised   

"Other men live to eat, while I eat to live."

Socrates on   

"Do not be angry with me if I tell you the truth"

Socrates on truth
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"Naturam rerum cognoscere primum. "First know the nature of things" or "Get your facts straight first"."

Socrates on
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"Sidere mens eadum mutato. "The stars may be different, but the spirit is the same.""

Socrates on   

"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing."

Socrates on knowledge   

"An unexamined life is not worth living."

Socrates on