Socrates is famous for his contributions to philosophy and his quotes reflect his unique approach to thinking and questioning.
Here are some of the characteristics of Socrates’ quotes:
- Thought-provoking: Socrates’ quotes are known for their ability to make people think deeply and question their assumptions. He often used provocative questions to challenge people’s beliefs and encourage critical thinking.
- Humble: Socrates was known for his humility and his recognition of his own ignorance. His quotes often emphasize the importance of seeking knowledge and recognizing the limits of our understanding.
- Wisdom: Socrates was considered to be one of the wisest men in ancient Greece, and his quotes reflect his deep understanding of human nature and the world around us.
- Clarity: Despite the complexity of some of his ideas, Socrates had a talent for communicating his thoughts clearly and concisely. His quotes often have a simple, straightforward style that makes them easy to understand.
- Universal relevance: Although Socrates lived over 2,000 years ago, many of his quotes still resonate with people today. His ideas about the importance of self-knowledge, the value of virtue, and the nature of reality are timeless and continue to be relevant to modern audiences.
We have dozens of Socrates quotes in this article.
Let’s check them out.
Socrates Quotes
Here are various quotes attributed to Socrates:
- “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”
- “I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.”
- “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
- “Be as you wish to seem.”
- “To find yourself, think for yourself.”
- “By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.”
- “He who is not a good servant will not be a good master.”
- “True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.”
- “The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.”
- “One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing.”
- “The mind is everything; what you think, you become.”
- “The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.”
- “Beware the barrenness of a busy life.”
- “Let him that would move the world, first move himself.”
- “Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.”
- “He who is not a good servant will not be a good master.”
- “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”
- “I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.”
- “I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think.”
- “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”
- “To be conscious of being, you need to reclaim consciousness from the mind.”
- “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 form, it acquires a surname from this very violent motion, and is called love.”
- “Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people.”
- “There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.”
- “Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.”
- “Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm and constant.”
- “It is not living that matters, but living rightly.”
- “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.”
- “The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms.”
- “Prefer knowledge to wealth, for the one is transitory, the other perpetual.”
- “Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.”
- “Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity.”
- “An honest man is always a child.”
- “It is better to change an opinion than to persist in a wrong one.”
- “I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.”
- “It is not what you possess but what you give that makes you a good person.”
- “The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world is to be in reality what we would appear to be; all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice and experience of them.”
- “The only thing I know is that I know nothing.”
- “The greatest blessing granted to mankind come by way of madness, which is a divine gift.”
- “An unexamined life is a life without purpose.”
- “The only thing that makes life worth living is the possibility of experiencing now and then a sudden joy.”
- “One must learn by doing the thing; for though you think you know it, you have no certainty until you try.”
- “I cannot be angry with my friend; I cannot but remember a dialogue we had together not long since, and which you will allow to have been characteristic of our respective manners of life. He was speaking of a republic in which he held a high command. ‘In such a republic,’ said he, ‘I do not think there would be much trouble; for the citizens would have an interest in the government, and would know how to make their voices heard.’ ‘But,’ said I, ‘when they have made their voices heard, do you not suppose that some of them will be dissatisfied and will rise against the rest?’ ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘but then we should have the means of suppressing them.’ ‘And what means,’ I asked, ‘have you of suppressing them?’ ‘Why,’ he replied, ‘the means which we have in our hands, of course.’ ‘And what are they?’ I asked. ‘Why, the means of suppressing them,’ he repeated; ‘what else?’ ‘But what are these means?’ I asked again. ‘Why,’ said he, ‘the means which we have in our hands, of course; what else?’ ‘But,’ said I, ‘what are these means?’ ‘The means which we have in our hands,’ he replied; ‘what else?’ And so the dialogue went on, till at last he acknowledged that he did not know what the means were.”
- “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
- “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
- “To be conscious of being, you need to reclaim consciousness from the mind.”
- “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”
- “The only thing I know is that I know nothing.”
- “The greatest blessing granted to mankind come by way of madness, which is a divine gift.”
- “An unexamined life is a life without purpose.”
- “The only thing that makes life worth living is the possibility of experiencing now and then a sudden joy.”
- “One must learn by doing the thing; for though you think you know it, you have no certainty until you try.”
- “True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.”
- “There is no greater evil one can suffer than to hate reasonable discourse.”
- “I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.”
- “Let him who would move the world first move himself.”
- “I only know that I know nothing.”
- “He who is not a good servant will not be a good master.”
- “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”
- “The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.”
- “Wisdom begins in wonder.”
- “Wealth does not bring about excellence, but excellence brings about wealth and all other public and private blessings.”
- “To be afraid of death is only another form of thinking that one is wise when one is not.”
- “From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.”
- “By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.”
- “I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.”
- “The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms.”
- “True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.”
- “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”
- “Envy is the ulcer of the soul.”
- “I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your persons or your properties, but first and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul. I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue comes money and every other good of man, public as well as private.”
- “Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.”
- “If you want to be a good saddler, saddle the worst horse; for if you can tame one, you can tame all.”
- “True beauty is inner beauty.”
- “Do not do to others what angers you if done to you by others.”
- “From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.”
- “The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways – I to die, and you to live. Which is better, God only knows.”
- “Be the kind of person you want to meet.”
- “To be afraid of death is only another form of thinking that one is wise when one is not.”
- “Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity.”
- “There is no possession more valuable than a good and faithful friend.”
- “Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil.”
- “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”
- “To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.”
- “By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.”
- “If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it.”
- “The greater the difficulty, the greater the glory.”
- “The mind is everything; what you think, you become.”
- “Employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for.”
- “Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.”
- “I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.”
- “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 form, it acquires a surname from this very violent motion, and is called love.”
- “The heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.”
- “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”
- “Let him that would move the world, first move himself.”
- “I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.”
- “Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.”
- “The envious person grows lean with the fatness of their neighbor.”
- “He who is not a good servant will not be a good master.”
These are just a few of Socrates’ many quotes, but they illustrate his wisdom, his unique approach to thinking and questioning, and his emphasis on self-knowledge and virtue.
Final Word – Socrates Quotes
Socrates was a philosopher whose quotes continue to inspire and challenge people today, thousands of years after his death.
Socrates was known for his humility, his ability to ask thought-provoking questions, and his emphasis on the importance of self-knowledge and virtue.
His ideas about wisdom, the value of knowledge, and the nature of reality are still relevant today and continue to inspire people to think deeply about their own lives and the world around them.
Socrates’ legacy has had a lasting impact on philosophy and continues to influence people’s thinking and ideas about what it means to live a good life.
