125 Socrates Quotes on the Persistent Quest for Truth
This ancient Greek philosopher is credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy. Socrates was the first to explore questions of ethics and we are all glad he did. He pointed out that human choice was motivated by the desire for happiness and continued on to encourage people, so they would question the things they were told and look beyond the obvious. Socrates loved the company of people and loved listening to them as well as understanding their problems and ways of thought.
His belief in the capability of people to solve issues through logical thinking is still relevant today. The Socratic method is also one of his contributions to education and medicine. Read on to find an incredible selection of some of his wisest and most interesting words stated. He will inspire you, friends and loved ones but also provide you all with some food for thought. A man who considers himself to know nothing is definitely worth listening to.
Table of Contents
- Best Socrates Quotes
- Socrates’ Most Famous Quotes
- Socrates Quotes on Democracy
- Socrates Quotes on Life
- Socrates Quotes on Change
- Socrates Quotes on Images
Best Socrates Quotes
- To be is to do. Socrates
- Justice. If only we knew what it was. Socrates
- Knowledge is our ultimate good. Socrates
- Be true to thine own self. Socrates
- Knowledge will make you be free. Socrates
- The mind is the pilot of the soul. Socrates
- Happiness is unrepentant pleasure. Socrates
- Beauty comes first. Victory is secondary. What matters is joy. Socrates
- People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid. SocratesAn honest man is always a child. Socrates
- There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance. Socrates
- Time is endless when it is purposeful. Socrates
- Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty. Socrates
- Enjoy yourself — it’s later than you think. Socrates
- See one promontory, one mountain, one sea, one river and see all. Socrates
- Silence is a profound melody, for those who can hear it above all the noise. Socrates
- Man’s greatest privilege is the discussion of virtue. Socrates Socrates
- Fame is the perfume of heroic deeds. Socrates
- It is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong. Socrates
- Beauty is a short-lived tyranny. Socrates
- Every action has its pleasures and its price. Socrates
- If I save my insight, I don’t attend to weakness of eyesight. Socrates
- The comic and the tragic lie inseparably close, like light and shadow. Socrates
- Two things greater than all the things are. On is love and the other is war. Socrates
- Envy is the ulcer of the soul. Socrates
- Having the fewest wants, I am nearest to the gods. Socrates
- All wars are fought for the acquisition of wealth. Socrates
- All men’s souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine. Socrates
- Doing good is a matter of looking after the part of yourself which matters most, namely your soul. Socrates
- I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue comes money and every other good of man… Socrates
- Through your rags I see your vanity. Socrates
- Only the knowledge that comes from inside is the real Knowledge. Socrates
- Give me beauty in the inward soul; may the outward and the inward man be at one. Socrates
- He is a man of courage who does not run away, but remains at his post and fights against the enemy. Socrates
- Be slow to fall into friendship, but when you are in, continue firm and constant. Socrates
- Better to do a little well, then a great deal badly. Socrates
- If you want to be a good saddler, saddle the worst horse; for if you can tame one, you can tame all. Socrates
- There are two kinds of disease of the soul, vice and ignorance. Socrates
- Call no man unhappy until he is married. Socrates
- When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser. Socrates
- There is no possession more valuable than a good and faithful friend. Socrates
- Condemnation without investigation is the highest form of ignorance. Socrates
- Remember what is unbecoming to do is also unbecoming to speak of. Socrates
- I will not yield to any man contrary to what is right, for fear of death, even if I should die at once for not yielding. Socrates
- Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions, but those who kindly reprove thy faults. Socrates
- 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? Socrates
- If the story you’re about to tell me isn’t true, good or necessary, just forget it and don’t bother me with it. Socrates
- When you want wisdom and insight as badly as you want to breathe, it is then you shall have it. Socrates
- If a man comes to the door of poetry untouched by the madness of the Muses, believing that technique alone will make him a good poet, he and his sane compositions never reach perfection, but are utterly eclipsed by the performances of the inspired madman. Socrates
Socrates’ Most Famous Quotes
- Know Thyself. Socrates
- All I know is that I know nothing. Socrates
- Νo one is voluntarily wicked. Socrates
- Is it true; is it kind, or is it necessary? Socrates
- I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think. Socrates
- I am a Citizen of the World, and my Nationality is Goodwill. Socrates
- Be as you wish to seem. Socrates
- From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate. Socrates
- Understanding a question is half an answer. Socrates
- The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing. Socrates
- The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms. Socrates
- Wonder is the beginning of wisdom. Socrates
- Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel. Socrates
- Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people. Socrates
- Beauty is the bait which with delight allures man to enlarge his kind. Socrates
- My advice to you is get married: if you find a good wife you’ll be happy; if not, you’ll become a philosopher. Socrates
- Intelligent individuals learn from everything and everyone; average people, from their experiences. The stupid already have all the answers. Socrates
- The misuse of language induces evil in the soul. Socrates
- To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge. Socrates
- The poets are only the interpreters of the Gods. Socrates
- Prefer knowledge to wealth, for the one is transitory, the other perpetual. Socrates
- Those who are the hardest to love are the ones who need it most. Socrates
- To be uncertain is to be uncomfortable, but to be certain is to be ridiculous. Socrates
- Human nature will not easily find a better helper than eros. Socrates
- He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is an incorrigible fool. Socrates
- 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
- How can you wonder your travels do you no good, when you carry yourself around with you? Socrates
- In childhood be modest, in youth temperate, in adulthood just, and in old age prudent. Socrates
- If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it. Socrates
- Sometimes you put walls up not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to break them down. Socrates
- It is better to be at odds with the whole world than, being one, to be at odds with myself. Socrates
- He who is not contented with what he has, will not be contented with what he would like to have. Socrates
- I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know. Socrates
Socrates Quotes on Democracy
- Make Athens Think Again. Socrates
- The perfect human being is all human beings put together, it is a collective, it is all of us together that make perfection. Socrates
- I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live. Socrates
- Nobody is qualified to become a statesman who is entirely ignorant of the problem of wheat. Socrates
- By far the greatest and most admirable form of wisdom is that needed to plan and beautify cities and human communities. Socrates
- He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god. Socrates
- Anyone who’s really fighting for justice must live as a private citizen and not as a public figure if he’s going to survive even a short time. Socrates
- Do you imagine that a city can continue to exist and not be turned upside down, if the legal judgments which are pronounced in it have no force but are nullified and destroyed by private persons? Socrates
- 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
Socrates Quotes on Life
- Beware the barrenness of a busy life. Socrates
- An unconsidered life is not one worth living. Socrates
- Life contains but two tragedies. One is not to get your heart’s desire; the other is to get it. Socrates
- We cannot live better than in seeking to become better. Socrates
- A Life without criticism and status is not a worth living. Socrates
- Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. Socrates
- Living well and beautifully and justly are all one thing. Socrates
- What screws us up the most in life is the picture in our head of what it’s supposed to be. Socrates
- The years wrinkle our skin, but lack of enthusiasm wrinkles our soul. Socrates
- Bad people live that they may eat and drink, whereas good people eat and drink that they may live. Socrates
- The purpose in life is to develop a strong character. Socrates
- The really important thing is not to live, but to live well. And to live well meant, along with more enjoyable things in life, to live according to your principles. Socrates
- 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
- It is only in death that we are truly cured of the ‘sickness’ of life. Socrates
- Do not go through life like leaf blown from here to there believing whatever you are told. Socrates
- The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less. Socrates
- 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
- Our lives are but specks of dust falling through the fingers of time. Like sands of the hourglass, so are the days of our lives. Socrates
- The wise man seeks death all his life and therefore death is not terrible to him. Socrates
- No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew it was the greatest of evils. Socrates
- It is not difficult to avoid death, gentlemen of the jury; it is much more difficult to avoid wickedness, for it runs faster than death. Socrates
- Be of good cheer about death, and know this of a truth, that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death. Socrates
- Get not your friends by bare compliments, but by giving them sensible tokens of your love. Socrates
- If all misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart. Socrates
- No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable. Socrates
Socrates Quotes on Change
- He who would change the world should first change himself. Socrates
- Only the extremely ignorant or the extremely intelligent can resist change. Socrates
- It is better to change an opinion than to persist in a wrong one. Socrates
- The easiest and noblest way is not to be crushing others, but to be improving yourselves. Socrates
- The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new. Socrates
- Do not grieve over someone who changes all of the sudden. It might be that he has given up acting and returned to his true self. Socrates
- Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore, avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity. Socrates
- Are you not ashamed of caring so much for the making of money and for fame and prestige, when you neither think nor care about wisdom and truth and the improvement of your soul? Socrates
- If you don’t get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don’t want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can’t hold on to it forever. Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is law and no amount of pretending will alter that reality. Socrates
Socrates Quotes on Images
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