Socrates Quotes

"Justice is the only thing that should be considered when acting."

"The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways - I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows."

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

"I am and always have been one of those natures who must be guided by reason, whatever the reason may be which upon reflection appears to me to be the best."

"Virtue does not come from wealth, but wealth and every other good thing which men have comes from virtue."

"There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance."

"A man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong."

"The soul, when it is purified, is not afraid to leave the body."

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

"The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world, is to be in reality what we would appear to be."

"An honest man is always a child."

"For the fear of death is indeed the imitation of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being an appearance of knowing the unknown."

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

"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 know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing."

"The easiest and noblest way is not to be crushing others, but to be improving yourselves."

"Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity."

"Every action has its pleasures and its price."

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

"I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world."

"Do not do to others what angers you if done to you by others."

"The soul, like the body, accepts by practice whatever habit one wishes it to contact."

"The best way to avoid a bad reputation is to live a good life."

"To be curious is the first step to being wise."

"Wrongdoing is an evil and a disgrace."

"Courage is a sort of endurance of the soul."

"He who is not a good servant will not be a good master."

"The first and best victory is to conquer self."

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

"Endurance is the knowledge or habit of what is to be endured and what is not."

"Slanderers do not hurt me because they do not hit me."

"The hottest love has the coldest end."

"Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?"