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Socrates Quotes
470 BC–399 BC Greece
Socrates (Σωκράτης; c. 470 BC – 399 BC) was a classical Greek (Athenian) philosopher credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy. Through his portrayal in Plato's dialogues, Socrates has become renowned for his contribution to the field of ethics, and it is this Platonic Socrates who lends his name to the concepts of Socratic irony and the Socratic method, or elenchus.
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77 quotes
I believe that we cannot live better than in seeking to become better.
The being of all virtues, and chiefly of temperance, depends on the practice of them.
There is no greater evil one can suffer than to hate reasonable discourse.
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.
Crito, Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius. Pay it and do not neglect it.
Those who want fewest things are nearest to the Gods.
"Nothing is to be preferred before justice"
Ηe knew nothing except just the fact of his ignorance.
You will know that the divine is so great and of such a nature that it sees and hears everything at once, is present everywhere, and is concerned with everything.
Though pleasure is the one and only goal to which incontinence is thought to lead men, she herself cannot bring them to it, whereas nothing produces pleasure so surely as self-control.
I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your persons or your properties, but and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul.
I only wish that wisdom were the kind of thing that flowed ... from the vessel that was full to the one that was empty.
The man who eats with the greatest appetite has the least need of delicacies.
What Jupiter? Do not trifle. There is no Jupiter.
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.
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.
He who drinks with the greatest appetite is the least inclined to look for a draught which is not at hand.
Often when looking at a mass of things for sale, he would say to himself, "How many things I have no need of!"
He who has lived as a true philosopher has reason to be of good cheer when he is about to die, and that after death he may hope to receive the greatest good in the other world.
I will obey the god rather than you, and as long as I draw breath and am able, I shall not cease to practice philosophy.
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