Top 440 Quotes & Sayings by Socrates - Page 4

What most counts is not merely to live, but to live right.

To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge. For a man who claims to have knowledge, while actually knowing nothing, is less smarter than you, who claim to know nothing.

Whenever any one informs us that he has found a man who knows all the arts, and all things else that anybody knows, and every single thing with a higher degree of accuracy than any other man - whoever tells us this, I think that we can only imagine him to be a simple creature who is likely to have been deceived by some wizard or actor whom he met, and whom he thought all-knowing, because he himself was unable to analyse the nature of knowledge and ignorance and imitation.

Man's life is like a drop of dew on a leaf.

I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know.

Are not all things which have opposites generated out of their opposites?

She soars on her own wings.

If one knows what is right, he will do it; nobody wants to be evil

I am very conscious that I am not wise at all.

The hardest task needs the lightest hand or else its completion will not lead to freedom but to a tyranny much worse than the one it replaces.

God does not deal directly with man: it is by means of spirits that all the intercourse and communication of gods with men, both in waking life and in sleep, is carried on.

Slanderers do not hurt me because they do not hit me.

A disorderly mob is no more an army than a heap of building materials is a house

An unexamined life is a life of no account.

What a lot of things I don't need.

Wisest is he who knows he knows not.

Who knows if to live is to be dead, and to be dead, to live? And we really, it may be, are dead; in fact I once heard sages say that we are now dead, and the body is our tomb.

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.

The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms.

Pride divides the men, humility joins them.

We shall be better, braver, and more active if we believe it right to look for what we don't know.

I love to go and see all the things I am happy without.

Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm & constant.

Regard your good name as the richest jewel you can possibly be possessed of - for credit is like fire; when once you have kindled it you may easily preserve it, but if you once extinguish it, you will find it an arduous task to rekindle it again. The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.

To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom.

My belief is that to have no wants is divine.

It is best and easiest not to discredit others but to prepare oneself to be as good as possible.

Is there anyone to whom you entrust a greater number of serious matters than your wife? And is there anyone with whom you have fewer conversations?

Listen not to a tale-bearer or slanderer, for he tells thee nothing out of good-will; but as he discovereth of the secrets of others, so he will of thine in turn.

The universe really is motion & nothing else.

The bad one is that way because of the ignorance, therefore he can be healed with wisdom.

Why should I resent it when an ass kicks me?

The life of which meaning one never ponders is not worth living

True wisdom lies in one's confession about the limits of one's knowledge.

A multitude of books distracts the mind.

The best seasoning for food is hunger; for drink, thirst.

Exercise till the mind feels delight in reposing from the fatigue.

I am a citizen, not of Athens, or Greece, but of the world.

Only the knowledge that comes from inside is the real Knowledge

wealth does not bring goodness, but goodness brings wealth and every other blessing, both to the individual and to the state

Death offers mankind a full view of truth.

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.

Wars and revolutions and battles are due simply and solely to the body and its desires. All wars are undertaken for the acquisition of wealth; and the reason why we have to acquire wealth is the body, because we are slaves in its service.

How can you wonder your travels do you no good, when you carry yourself around with you?

Follow the argument wherever it leads.

Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful, or of him who is ill-educated ungraceful.

Beauty comes first. Victory is secondary. What matters is joy.

For this fear of death is indeed the pretense of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being the appearance of knowing the unknown; since no one knows whether death, which they in their fear apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good.

If you would seek health, look first to the spine.

If all the misfortunes of mankind were cast into a public stack in order to be equally distributed among the whole species, those who now think themselves the most unhappy would prefer the share they are already possessed of before that which would fall to them by such a division.

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

The understanding of mathematics is necessary for a sound grasp of ethics.

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.

When our feet hurt, we hurt all over.

Through your rags I see your vanity.

False language, evil in itself, infects the soul with evil.

When you propose ridiculous things to believe, too many men will choose to believe nothing at all.

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

The reason why we have to acquire wealth is the body, because we are slaves in its service.

Fear of women love more than hate the man.