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Socrates

100 quotes

“I only wish that wisdom were the kind of thing that flowed ... from the vessel that was full to the one that was empty.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It would be better for me... that multitudes of men should disagree with me rather than that I, being one, should be out of harmony with myself.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Plato
“In every one of us there are two ruling and directing principles, whose guidance we follow wherever they may lead; the one being an innate desire of pleasure; the other, an acquired judgment which aspires after excellence.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Oh dear Pan and all the other gods of this place, grant that I may be beautiful inside. Let all my external possessions be in friendly harmony with what is within. May I consider the wise man rich. As for gold, let me have as much as a moderate man could bear and carry with him.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One should never do wrong in return, nor mistreat any man, no matter how one has been mistreated by him.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Has a philosopher like you failed to discover that our country is more to be valued and higher and holier far than mother or father or any ancestor, and more to be regarded in the eyes of the gods and of men of understanding?”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“μηδὲν πρὸ τοῦ δικαίου”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 155d, The Dialogues of Plato, Volume 3, 1871, p. 377
Also quoted by: Plato
“ἐγὼ δὲ οὐδὲν ἐπίσταμαι πλέον πλὴν βραχέος, ὅσον λόγον παρ᾽ ἑτέρου σοφοῦ λαβεῖν καὶ ἀποδέξασθαι μετρίως.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Each of these private teachers who work for pay ... inculcates nothing else than these opinions of the multitude which they opine when they are assembled and calls this knowledge wisdom.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Anyone who holds a true opinion without understanding is like a blind man on the right road.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The inexperienced in wisdom and virtue, ever occupied with feasting and such, are carried downward, and there, as is fitting, they wander their whole life long, neither ever looking upward to the truth above them nor rising toward it, nor tasting pure and lasting pleasures. Like cattle, always looking downward with their heads bent toward the ground and the banquet tables, they feed, fatten, and fornicate. In order to increase their possessions they kick and butt with horns and hoofs of steel and kill each other, insatiable as they are.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Plato
“If the entire soul, then, follows without rebellion the part which loves wisdom, the result is that in general each part can carry out its own function—can be just, in other words—and in particular each is able to enjoy pleasures which are its own, the best, and, as far as possible, the truest. ... When one of the other parts takes control, there are two results: it fails to discover its own proper pleasure, and it compels the other parts to pursue a pleasure which is not their own, and not true.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Plato, Republic, T. Griffith, trans. (2000), 587a
“How singular is the thing called pleasure, and how curiously related to pain, which might be thought to be the opposite of it; for they never come to a man together, and yet he who pursues either of them is generally compelled to take the other. They are two, and yet they grow together out of one head or stem.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the course of my life I have often had intimations in dreams "that I should make music." The same dream came to me sometimes in one form, and sometimes in another, but always saying the same or nearly the same words: Make and cultivate music, said the dream. And hitherto I imagined that this was only intended to exhort and encourage me in the study of philosophy, which has always been the pursuit of my life, and is the noblest and best of music.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am quite ready, Simmias and Cebes, that I ought to be grieved at death, if I were not persuaded that I am going to other gods who are wise and good and to men departed who are better than those whom I leave behind; and therefore I do not grieve as I might have done, for I have good hope that there is yet something remaining for the dead, and, as has been said of old, some far better thing for the good than for the evil.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The true disciple of philosophy is likely to be misunderstood by other men; they do not perceive that he is ever pursuing death and dying; and if this is true, why, having had the desire of death all his life long, should he repine at that which he has always been pursuing and desiring?”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When does the soul obtain truth?—for in attempting to consider anything in company with the body she is obviously deceived. ...Then must not existence be revealed to her in thought, if at all? ...And thought is best when the mind is gathered into herself and none of these things trouble her—neither sounds nor sights nor pain nor any pleasure—when she has as little as possible to do with the body, and has no bodily sense or feeling, but is aspiring after being? ...And in this the philosopher dishonors the body; his soul runs away from the body and desires to be alone and by herself?”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The body is a source of endless trouble to us by reason of the mere requirement of food; and is also liable to diseases which overtake and impede us in the search after truth: and by filling us so full of loves, and lusts, and fears, and fancies, and idols, and every sort of folly, prevents our ever having, as people say, so much as a thought.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Whence come wars, and fighting, and factions? whence but from the body and the lusts of the body? For wars are occasioned by the love of money, and money has to be acquired for the sake and in service of the body; and in consequence of all these things, the time which ought to be given to philosophy is lost.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Either knowledge is not to be attained at all, or if at all, after death. For then, and not til then, the soul will be in herself alone and without the body.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And now that the hour of departure is appointed to me, this is the hope with which I depart, and not I only, but every man that believes that he has his mind purified.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And will he who is a true lover of wisdom, and is persuaded in like manner that only in the world below can he worthily enjoy her, still repine at death? Will he not depart with joy? Surely he will, my friend, if he be a true philosopher. ...And if this be true, he would be very absurd, ...if he were to fear death.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And when you see a man who is repining at the approach of death, is not his reluctance a sufficient proof that he is not a lover of wisdom, but a lover of the body, and probably at the same time a lover of either money or power, or both?”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is a virtue, Simmias, which is named courage. Is not that a special attribute of the philosopher? ...Again, there is temperance. Is not the calm, and control, and disdain of the passions which even the many call temperance, a quality belonging only to those who despise the body and live in philosophy?”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...do not courageous men endure death because they are afraid of yet greater evils? ...Then all but philosophers are courageous only from fear, and because they are afraid; and yet that a man should be courageous from fear, and because he is a coward, is surely a strange thing.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And are not the temperate exactly in the same case? They are temperate because they are intemperate—which may seem to be a contradiction, but is nevertheless the sort of thing which happens with this foolish temperance. For there are pleasures which they must have, and are afraid of losing; and therefore they abstain from one class of pleasures because they are overcome by another: and whereas intemperance is defined as "being under the domination of pleasure," they overcome only because they are overcome by pleasure.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The exchange of one fear or pleasure or pain for another fear or pleasure or pain, which are measured like coins, the greater with the less, is not the exchange of virtue. O, my dear Simmias, is there not one true coin, for which all things ought to exchange?—and that is wisdom; and only in exchange for this, and in company with this, is anything truly bought or sold, whether courage or temperance or justice. ...in the true exchange, there is a purging away of all these things, and temperance, and justice, and courage, and wisdom herself are a purgation of them.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I conceive that the founders of the mysteries had a real meaning and were not mere triflers when they intimated in a figure long ago that he who passes unsanctified and uninitiated into the world below will live in a slough, but that he who arrives there after initiation and purification will dwell with the gods. For "many," as they say in the mysteries, "are the thyrsus bearers, but few are the mystics,"—meaning, as I interpret the words, the true philosophers.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If generation were in a straight line only, and there were no compensation or circle in nature, no turn or return into one another, then you know that all things would at last have the same form and pass into the same state, and there would be no more generation of them.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am confident in the belief that there truly is such a thing as living again, and that the living spring from the dead, and that the souls of the dead are in existence, and that the good souls have a better portion than the evil.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If the knowledge which we acquired before birth was lost to us at birth, and afterwords by the use of the senses we recovered that which we previously knew, will not that which we call learning be a process of recovering our knowledge, and may not this be rightly termed recollection by us? ...Then, Simmias, our souls must have existed before they were in the form of man—without bodies, and must have had intelligence.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We admitted that everything living is born of the dead. For if the soul existed before birth, and in coming to life and being born can be born only from death and dying, must she not after death continue to exist, since she has to be born again?”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Suppose that there are two sorts of existences, one seen, and the other unseen. ...The seen is the changing, and the unseen is the unchanging. ...And further, is not one part of us body, and the rest of us soul? ...Then the soul is more like to the unseen, and the body to the seen? ...the soul is then dragged by the body into the region of the changeable, and wanders and is confused; the world spins round her, and she is like a drunkard when under their influence?”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But when returning into herself she [the soul] reflects; then she passes into the realm of purity, and eternity, and immortality, and unchangeableness, which are her kindred, and with them she ever lives, when she is by herself and is not let or hindered; then she ceases from her erring ways, and being in communion with the unchanging is unchanging. And this state of the soul is called wisdom.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The soul is in the very likeness of the divine, and immortal, and intelligible, and uniform, and indissoluble, and unchangeable; and the body is in the very likeness of the human, and mortal, and unintelligible, and multiform, and dissoluble, and changeable.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He who is a philosopher or lover of learning, and is entirely pure at departing, is alone permitted to reach the gods. And this is the reason, Simmias and Cebes, why the true votaries of philosophy abstain from all fleshly lusts, and endure and refuse to give themselves up to them—not because they fear poverty or ruin of their families, like the lovers of money, and the world in general; nor like the lovers of power and honor, because they dread the dishonor or disgrace of evil deeds.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They who have a care of their souls, and do not merely live in the fashions of the body, say farewell to all this; they will not walk in the ways of the blind: and when philosophy offers them purification and release from evil, they feel that they ought not resist her influence, and to her they incline, and whither she leads they follow her.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And this, Cebes, is the reason why the true lovers of knowledge are temperate and brave; and not for the reason that the world gives. For not in that way does the soul of a philosopher reason. ...Never fear, Simmias and Cebes, that a soul which has been thus nurtured and has had these pursuits, will at her departure from the body be scattered and blown away by the winds and be nowhere and nothing.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Will you not allow that I have as much of the spirit of prophecy in me as the swans? For they, when they perceive that they must die, having sung all their life long, do then sing more than ever, rejoicing in the thought that they are about to go away to the god whose ministers they are.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nothing is more uncommon than a very large or a very small man; and this applies generally to all extremes, whether of great and small, or swift and slow, or fair and foul, or black and white; and whether the instances you select be man or dogs or anything else, few are the extremes,but many are in the mean between them.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When a simple man who has no skill in dialectics believes an argument to be true which he afterwards imagines to be false, whether really false or not, and then another and another, he no longer has any faith left, and great disputers, as you know, come to think, at last that they have grown to be the wisest of mankind; for they alone perceive the utter unsoundness and instability of all arguments, or, indeed, of all things, which like the currents in the Euripus, are going up and down in never-ceasing ebb and flow.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let us... be careful of admitting into our souls the notion that there is no truth or health or soundness in any arguments at all; but let us rather say that there is as yet no health in us, and that we must quit ourselves like men and do our best to gain health—you and all other men with a view to the whole of your future life, and I myself with a view to death.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The soul, being a harmony, can never utter a note at variance with the tensions and relaxations and vibrations and other affections of the strings out of which she is composed; she can only follow, she cannot lead them? ...And yet do we not now discover the soul to be doing the exact opposite—leading the elements of which she is believed to be composed; almost always opposing and coercing them in all sorts of ways throughout life... threatening and reprimanding the desires, passions, fears, as if talking to a thing which is not herself...”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Then I heard someone who had a book of Anaxagoras, as he said, out of which he read that the mind was the disposer and cause of all... and I said to myself: If mind is the disposer, mind will dispose all for the best, and put each particular in the best place; and I argued that if anyone desired to find out the cause of the generation or destruction of anything, he must find out what state of being or suffering or doing was best for that thing, and therefore a man had only consider the best for himself and others, and then he would also know the worse, for that the same science comprised both.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It may be said, indeed, that without bones and muscles and the other parts of the body I cannot execute my purposes. But to say that I do as I do because of them, and that this is the way in which the mind acts, and not from the choice of the best, is a very careless and idle mode of speaking. I wonder that they cannot distinguish the cause from the condition, which the many, feeling about in the dark, are always mistaking and misnaming.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If there is anything beautiful other than absolute beauty, that can only be beautiful as far as it partakes of absolute beauty—and this I should say of everything. ...by beauty all things become beautiful. ...by greatness only great things become great and greater and greater, and by smallness the less becomes less.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You would say... inexperienced as I am, and ready to start, as the proverb says, at my own shadow, I cannot afford to give up the sure ground of principle. ...and when you are further required to give an explanation of this principle, you would go on to assume a higher principle, and the best of the higher ones, until you found a resting place; but you would not refuse the principle and consequences in your reasoning like the Eristics—at least if you wanted to discover real existence.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Not that this confusion signifies to them who never care to think about the matter at all, for they have the wit to be well pleased with themselves, however great the turmoil of their ideas. But you, if you are a philosopher, will, I believe, do as I say.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Absolute greatness will never be great and also small, but that greatness in us or in the concrete will never admit the small or admit of even being exceeded; instead of this, one of two things will happen—either the greater will fly and retire before the opposite, which is the less, or the advance of the less will cease to exist; but will not, if allowing or admitting smallness, be changed by that...nor can any other opposite which remains the same ever be or become its own opposite, but either passes away or perishes in the change.”
Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source