147 Socrates Quotes Unlocking his Timeless Wisdom
In the history, few philosophers have left as indelible a mark on human thought and wisdom as Socrates. Born in Athens around 470 BCE, this ancient Greek philosopher’s ideas continue to resonate with seekers of truth and knowledge millennia after his time. Socrates’ teachings, often in the form of dialogues, have been passed down through generations, and many of his profound insights are encapsulated in his memorable quotes. Socrates quotes are timeless and offer valuable insights into various aspects of life, including ethics, wisdom, and self-awareness. Let’s embark on a journey to explore some of the most influential and enduring quotes attributed to this intellectual giant.
Socrates Quotes
- “Falling down is not a failure. Failure comes when you stay where you have fallen.” ~ Socrates
- “To find yourself, think for yourself.” ~ Socrates
- “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” ~ Socrates
- “It is better to change an opinion than to persist in a wrong one.” ~ Socrates
- “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” ~ Socrates
- “The unexamined life is not worth living.” ~ Socrates
- “There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.” ~ Socrates
- “I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think.” ~ Socrates
- “Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.” ~ Socrates
- “Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people.” ~ Socrates
Philosopher Socrates Quotes
- “Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.” ~ Socrates
- “Be slow to fall into friendship, but when you are in, continue firm and constant.” ~ Socrates
- “He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.” ~ Socrates
- “Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.” ~ Socrates
- “Envy is the ulcer of the soul.” ~ Socrates
- “Get not your friends by bare compliments, but by giving them sensible tokens of your love.” ~ Socrates
- “If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it.” ~ Socrates
- “Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity.” ~ Socrates
- “Remember what is unbecoming to do is also unbecoming to speak of.” ~ Socrates
- “I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm; then they might have an unlimited power for doing good.” ~ Socrates
Quotation of Socrates
- “The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world, is to be in reality what we would appear to be; and if we observe, we shall find, that all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice of them.” ~ Socrates
- “Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions; but those who kindly reprove thy faults.” ~ Socrates
- “Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.” ~ Socrates
- “If all misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart.” ~ Socrates
- “To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.” ~ Socrates
- “I know that I am intelligent because I know that I know nothing.” ~ Socrates
- “Be as you wish to seem.” ~ Socrates
- “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.” ~ 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
- “I have lived long enough to learn how much there is I can really do without…. He is nearest to God who needs the fewest things.” ~ Socrates
Socrates Quotes
- “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
- “A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.” ~ Socrates
- “He is rich who is content with the least; for contentment is the wealth of nature.” ~ Socrates
- “Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior.” ~ Socrates
- “Only the extremely ignorant or the extremely intelligent can resist change.” ~ Socrates
- “The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.” ~ Socrates
- “The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.” ~ Socrates
- “People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid.” ~ Socrates
- “Wisdom begins in wonder.” ~ Socrates
- “Get not your friends by bare compliments, but by giving them sensible tokens of your love.”~ Socrates
Quotes by 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? Only God knows.” ~ Socrates
- “The hottest love has the coldest end.” ~ Socrates
- “Nature has given us two ears, two eyes, and but one tongue- to the end that we should hear and see more than we speak.” ~ Socrates
- “Our prayers should be for blessings in general, for God knows best what is good for us.” ~ Socrates
- “Employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for.” ~ Socrates
- “From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.” ~ Socrates
- “The envious person grows lean with the fatness of their neighbor.” ~ Socrates
- “Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty.” ~ Socrates
- “Call no man unhappy until he is married.” ~ Socrates
Saying of Socrates
- “Let him that would move the world, first move himself.” ~ Socrates
- “The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.”~ Socrates
- “We cannot live better than in seeking to become better.” ~ Socrates
- “The nearest way to glory is to strive to be what you wish to be thought to be.” ~ Socrates
- “The easiest and noblest way is not to be crushing others, but to be improving yourselves. ” ~ Socrates
- “False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.” ~ Socrates
- “The mind is everything; what you think you become” ~ Socrates
- “No man undertakes a trade he has not learned, even the meanest; yet everyone thinks himself sufficiently qualified for the hardest of all trades, that of government.” ~ Socrates
- “I would rather die having spoken after my manner, than speak in your manner and live.”~ Socrates
- “An education obtained with money is worse than no education at all.” ~ Socrates
Best Socrates Quotes
- “The triumph of my art is in thoroughly examining whether the thought which the mind of the young man brings forth is a false idol or a noble true birth.”~ Socrates
- “Give me beauty in the inward soul; may the outward and the inward man be at one.” ~ Socrates
- “Speak, so that I may see you.”~ Socrates
- “How many are the things I can do without!” ~ Socrates
- “We gain our first measure of intelligence when we first admit our own ignorance.”~ Socrates
- “Nothing is to be preferred before justice.” ~ Socrates
- “Anybody can be a hellene, by his heart, his mind, his spirit.” ~ Socrates
- “Worthless people love only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.” ~ Socrates
- “Know Thyself.”~ Socrates
- “Whenever, therefore, people are deceived and form opinions wide of the truth, it is clear that the error has slid into their minds through the medium of certain resemblances to that truth.” ~ Socrates
Famous Socrates Quotes
- “It is a disgrace to grow old through sheer carelessness before seeing what manner of man you may become by developing your bodily strength and beauty to their highest limit.”~ Socrates
- “I prefer to be refuted than to refute, for it is a greater good for oneself to be freed from the greatest evil than to free another.” ~ Socrates
- “One who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice.” ~ Socrates
- “Since I am convinced that I wrong no one, I am not likely to wrong myself.” ~ Socrates
- “Slanderers do not hurt me because they do not hit me.” ~ Socrates
- “I am not an Athenian, nor a Greek, but a citizen of the world.” ~ Socrates
- “It is better to be at odds with the whole world than, being one, to be at odds with myself.” ~ Socrates
- “They are not only idle who do nothing, but they are idle also who might be better employed.” ~ Socrates
- “The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms.” ~ Socrates
- “We can do nothing without the body, let us always take care that it is in the best condition to sustain us.” ~ Socrates
Socrates Quotes on Life
- “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.” ~ Socrates
- “I have not sought during my life to amass wealth and to adorn my body, but I have sought to adorn my soul with the jewels of wisdom, patience, and above all with a love of liberty.” ~ Socrates
- “The energy of the mind is the essence of life.” ~ Socrates
- “True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.” ~ Socrates
- “Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.” ~ Socrates
- “Beware the barrenness of a busy life.” ~ Socrates
- “The perfect human being is all human beings put together, it is a collective, it is all of us together that make perfection.” ~ Socrates
- “Remember, no human condition is ever permanent. Then you will not be overjoyed in good fortune nor too scornful in misfortune.” ~ Socrates
- “Mankind is made of two kinds of people: wise people who know they’re fools, and fools who think they are wise.” ~ Socrates
- “If I save my insight, I don’t attend to weakness of eyesight.”~ Socrates
Timeless Insights of Socrates
- “In childhood be modest, in youth temperate, in adulthood just, and in old age prudent.” ~ Socrates
- “You never know a line is crooked unless you have a straight one to put next to it.” ~ Socrates
- “Beauty comes first. Victory is secondary. What matters is joy.” ~ Socrates
- “Sometimes you put walls up not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to break them down.” ~ Socrates
- “The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.” ~ Socrates
- “Do not do to others what angers you if done to you by others.” ~ Socrates
- “Every action has its pleasures and its price.” ~ Socrates
- “Prefer knowledge to wealth, for the one is transitory, the other perpetual.” ~ 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
- “As to marriage or celibacy, let a man take which course he will, he will be sure to repent.” ~ Socrates
Beautiful Socrates Quotes
- “I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.” ~ Socrates
- “He is a man of courage who does not run away, but remains at his post and fights against the enemy.” ~ Socrates
- “Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.” ~ Socrates
- “All men’s souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine.” ~ Socrates
- “An honest man is always a child.” ~ Socrates
- “Nothing is so well learned as that which is discovered.” ~ Socrates
- “True perfection is a bold quest to seek. Only the willing and true of heart will seek the betterment of many.” ~ Socrates
- “Be nicer than necessary to everyone you meet. Everyone is fighting some kind of battle.” ~ Socrates
- “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” ~ Socrates
- “Smart people learn from everything and everyone. Average people from their experiences. Stupid people already have all the answers.” ~ Socrates
Greatest Socrates Quotes
- “I call myself a peaceful warrior because the battles we fight are on the inside.” ~ Socrates
- “The value of a man is measured in the number of those who stand beside him, not those who follow.” ~ Socrates
- “There are two kinds of disease of the soul, vice and ignorance.” ~ Socrates
- “Be the kind of person that you want people to think you are.” ~ Socrates
- “Wise men speak when they have something to say, fools speak because they have to say something” ~ Socrates
- “It is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong” ~ Socrates
- “He who would change the world should first change himself.” ~ Socrates
- “The mind is the pilot of the soul.” ~ Socrates
- “And now we go, you to your lives, and I to death, and which of us goes to the better only God knows” ~ Socrates
- “Human nature will not easily find a better helper than eros” ~ Socrates
Powerful Socrates Quotes
- “Beauty is the bait which with delight allures man to enlarge his kind.” ~ Socrates
- “Awareness of ignorance is the beginning of wisdom.” ~ Socrates
- “The nearest way to glory a shortcut, as it were is to strive to be what you wish to be thought to be.” ~ Socrates
- “What a lot of things there are a man can do without.” ~ Socrates
- “The more you know, the more you realize you know nothing.” ~ Socrates
- “The poets are only the interpreters of the gods.” ~ Socrates
- “It is not what you do for your children, but what you have taught them to do for themselves, that will make them successful human beings.” ~ Socrates
- “The greater the power that deigns to serve you, the more honor it demands of you.” ~ Socrates
- “The measure of a man is what he does with power.” ~ Socrates
- “Courage is knowing what not to fear.” ~ Socrates
Inspiring Socrates Quotes
- “The beginning is the most important part, especially when dealing with anything young and tender.” ~ Socrates
- “He who commits injustice is ever made more wretched than he who suffers it.” ~ Socrates
- “The individual leads in order that those who are led can develop their potential as human beings and thereby prosper.” ~ Socrates
- “Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.” ~ Socrates
- “If you want to be wrong then follow the masses.” ~ Socrates
- “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” ~ Socrates
- “Why should we pay so much attention to what the majority thinks?” ~ Socrates
- “When you want wisdom and insight as badly as you want to breathe, it is then you shall have it.” ~ Socrates
- “Only the knowledge that comes from inside is the real Knowledge.” ~ Socrates
- “The first key to greatness is to be in reality what we appear to be.” ~ Socrates
Socrates Quotes
- “True wisdom lies in one’s confession about the limits of one’s knowledge.” ~ Socrates
- “Understanding a question is half an answer.” ~ Socrates
- “One should never do wrong in return, nor mistreat any man, no matter how one has been mistreated by him.” ~ Socrates
- “The greatest blessing granted to mankind came by way of madness, which is a divine gift.” ~ Socrates
- “Those who are hardest to love need it the most.” ~ Socrates
- “I love to go and see all the things I am happy without.” ~ Socrates
- “The soul, like the body, accepts by practice whatever habit one wishes it to contact.” ~ Socrates
Over to You
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