Quotes from Socrates

The order is a bit muddled but one cannot do Plato and Aristotle and miss out the great Socrates. Some drops of wisdom from the great philosopher.

 http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/275648.Socrates

 

“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”

“There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.”

“I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think”

“Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.”

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

“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.”

“Be slow to fall into friendship, but when you are in, continue firm and constant.”

“Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.”

“Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people.”

“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.”

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

“Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.”

“Sometimes you put walls up not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to break them down.”

“Know thyself.”

“Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.”

“Let him who would move the world first move himself.”

“Every action has its pleasures and its price.”

“The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.”

“The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.”

“Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty.”

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

“When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.”

“I am not an Athenian nor a Greek, but a citizen of the world.”

“Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for.”

“Prefer knowledge to wealth, for the one is transitory, the other perpetual”

“We cannot live better than in seeking to become better.”

“Envy is the ulcer of the soul.”

“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.”

“understanding a question is half an answer”

“Beware the barrenness of a busy life.”

“The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our separate ways, I to die, and you to live. Which of these two is better only God knows.”

“The hottest love has the coldest end.”

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”

“Thou shouldst eat to live; not live to eat.”

“From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.”

“If you want to be a good saddler, saddle the worst horse; for if you can tame one, you can tame all.”

“I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.”

“I pray Thee, O God, that I may be beautiful within. ”

“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.”

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

“In all of us, even in good men, there is a lawless wild-beast nature, which peers out in sleep.”

“If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be content to take their own and depart.”

“The greatest blessing granted to mankind come by way of madness, which is a divine gift.”

“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.”

“Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior.”

“Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions; but those who kindly reprove thy faults.”

“He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.”

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

“One should never do wrong in return, nor mistreat any man, no matter how one has been mistreated by him.”

“All men's souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine.”

“Through your rags I see your vanity.”

“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.”

“Life contains but two tragedies. One is not to get your heart’s desire; the other is to get it.”

“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.”

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

“The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms.”

“The highest realms of thought are impossible to reach without first attaining an understanding of compassion.”

“And therefore if the head and the body are to be well, you must begin by curing the soul; that is the first and essential thing. And the care of the soul, my dear youth, has to be effected by the use of certain charms, and these charms are fair words; and by them temperance is implanted in the soul, and where temperance comes and stays, there health is speedily imparted, not only to the head, but to the whole body.”

"To be is to do”

“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.”

“Living well and beautifully and justly are all one thing.”

“God takes away the minds of poets, and uses them as his ministers, as he also uses diviners and holy prophets, in order that we who hear them may know them to be speaking not of themselves who utter these priceless words in a state of unconsciousness, but that God himself is the speaker, and that through them he is conversing with us. ”

“To express oneself badly is not only faulty as far as the language goes, but does some harm to the soul.”

“There is no solution; seek it lovingly ”

“Give me beauty in the inward soul; may the outward and the inward man be at one.”

“For the poet is a light and winged and holy thing, and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his senses, and the mind is no longer in him: when he has not attained to this state, he is powerless and is unable to utter his oracles.”

“What screws us up the most in life is the picture in our head of what it's supposed to be.”

“…money and honour have no attraction for them; good men do not wish to be openly demanding payment for governing and so to get the name of hirelings, nor by secretly helping themselves out of the public revenues to get the name of thieves. And not being ambitious they do not care about honour. Wherefore necessity must be laid upon them, and they must be induced to serve from the fear of punishment. And this, as I imagine, is the reason why the forwardness to take office, instead of waiting to be compelled, has been deemed dishonourable. Now the worst part of the punishment is that he who refuses to rule is liable to be ruled by one who is worse than himself. And the fear of this, as I conceive, induces the good to take office, not because they would, but because they cannot help — not under the idea that they are going to have any benefit or enjoyment themselves, but as a necessity, and because they are not able to commit the task of ruling to any one who is better than themselves, or indeed as good. For there is reason to think that if a city were composed entirely of good men, then to avoid office would be as much an object of contention as to obtain office is at present…”

“The mind is everything; what you think you become”

“I know you won't believe me, but the highest form of Human Excellence is to question oneself and others.”

“When you want wisdom and insight as badly as you want to breathe, it is then you shall have it.”

“Beauty is a short-lived tyranny”

“One day, the old wise Socrates walks down the streets, when all of the sudden a man runs up to him "Socrates I have to tell you something about your friend who..."
"Hold up" Socrates interrupts him "About the story you're about to tell me, did you put it trough the three sieves?"
"Three sieves?" The man asks "What three sieves?"
"Let's try it" Socrates says.
"The first sieve is the one of truth, did you examine what you were about to tell me if it is true?" Socrates asks.
"Well no, I just overheard it" The man says.
"Ah, well then you have used the second sieve, the sieve of good?" Socrates asks "Is it something good what you're about to tell me?"
"Ehm no, on the contrary" the man answers.
"Hmmm" The wise man says "Let's use the third sieve then, is it necessary to tell me what you're so exited about?"
"No not necessary" the man says.
"Well" Socrates says with a smile "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.”

“It is better to change an opinion than to persist in a wrong one.”

“Nobody is qualified to become a statesman who is entirely ignorant of the problem of wheat.”

 “Well, then, let’s not just trust the likelihood based on painting.”

“I do believe that there are gods, and in a far higher sense than that in which any of my accusers believe in them.”

 “Is it true; is it kind, or is it necessary?”

“Wealth does not bring about excellence, but excellence makes wealth and everything else good for men, both individually and collectively.”

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

 “Those who are hardest to love need it the most.”

“My plainness of speech makes them hate me, and what is their hatred but a
proof that I am speaking the truth.”

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

 “How many things can I do without?”

“.. 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, temperance or justice. And is not all true virtue the companion of wisdom, no matter what fears or pleasures or other similar goods or evils may or may not attend her? But the virtue which is made up of these goods, when they are severed from wisdom and exchanged with one another, is a shadow of virtue only, nor is there any freedom or health or truth in her; but 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.”

 “I examined the poets, and I look on them as people whose talent overawes both themselves and others, people who present themselves as wise men and are taken as such, when they are nothing of the sort.

From poets, I moved to artists. No one was more ignorant about the arts than I; no one was more convinced that artists possessed really beautiful secrets. However, I noticed that their condition was no better than that of the poets and that both of them have the same misconceptions. Because the most skillful among them excel in their specialty, they look upon themselves as the wisest of men. In my eyes, this presumption completely tarnished their knowledge. As a result, putting myself in the place of the oracle and asking myself what I would prefer to be — what I was or what they were, to know what they have learned or to know that I know nothing — I replied to myself and to the god: I wish to remain who I am.

We do not know — neither the sophists, nor the orators, nor the artists, nor I— what the True, the Good, and the Beautiful are. But there is this difference between us: although these people know nothing, they all believe they know something; whereas, I, if I know nothing, at least have no doubts about it. As a result, all this superiority in wisdom which the oracle has attributed to me reduces itself to the single point that I am strongly convinced that I am ignorant of what I do not know.”