Socrates
Socrates (c.470 BC - 399 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher who is widely credited for laying the foundation for Western philosophy.
Found 58 thoughts of Socrates
Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions; but those who kindly reprove thy faults.
Socrates
The ancient oracle said that I was the wisest of all the Greeks. It is because I alone, of all the Greeks, know that I know nothing.
Socrates
They are not only idle who do nothing, but they are idle also who might be better employed.
Socrates
As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.
Socrates
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
For to fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise without really being wise, for it is to think that we know what we do not know. For no one knows whether death may not be the greatest good that can happen to man. But men fear it as if they knew quite well that it was the greatest of evils.
Socrates
Only the extremely ignorant or the extremely intelligent can resist change.
Socrates
An unexamined life is not worth living.
Socrates
My belief is that to have no wants is divine
Socrates
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.
Socrates
Some have courage in pleasures, and some in pains: some in desires, and some in fears, and some are cowards under the same conditions.
Socrates
If a rich man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it.
Socrates
Man's life is like a drop of dew on a leaf.
Socrates
And in knowing that you know nothing, that makes you the smartest of all.
Socrates
Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?
Socrates
I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.
Socrates
He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.
Socrates
I am not an Athenian or a Greek - I am a citizen of the world.
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
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
When the debate is over, slander becomes the tool of the loser.
Socrates
The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways - I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows.
Socrates
I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled [poets] to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.
Socrates
All men's souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine.
Socrates
