Famous Socrates Quotes about life on wisdom, knowledge, Education and philosophy with image
I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think.
― Socrates
One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing.
― Socrates
The nearest way to glory is to strive to be what you wish to be thought to be.
― Socrates
Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.
― Socrates
The hottest love has the coldest end.
― Socrates
Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people.
― Socrates
The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.
― Socrates
Slanderers do not hurt me because they do not hit me.
― Socrates
Every action has its pleasures and its price.
― 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
Falling down is not a failure. Failure comes when you stay where you have fallen.
― Socrates
Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty.
― Socrates
Our prayers should be for blessings in general, for God knows best what is good for us.
― Socrates
Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm and constant.
― Socrates
Call no man unhappy until he is married.
― Socrates
Let him that would move the world, first move himself.
― Socrates
When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.
― Socrates
Silence is a profound melody, for those who can hear it above all the noise.
― Socrates
They are not only idle who do nothing, but they are idle also who might be better employed.
― Socrates
Smart people learn from everything and everyone, average people from their experiences, stupid people already have all the answers.
― Socrates
Fame is the perfume of heroic deeds.
― 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
Envy is the ulcer of the soul.
― Socrates
The end of life is to be like God, and the soul following God will be like Him.
― Socrates
The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.
― Socrates
By all means marry. If you get a good wife you will become happy, and if you get a bad one you will become a philosopher.
― Socrates
If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it.
― Socrates
True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.
― Socrates
The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms.
― Socrates
What a lot of things there are a man can do without.
― Socrates
I was afraid that by observing objects with my eyes and trying to comprehend them with each of my other senses I might blind my soul altogether.
― Socrates
To find yourself, think for yourself.
― Socrates
He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.
― 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
I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm; then they might have an unlimited power for doing good.
― Socrates
How many are the things I can do without!
― Socrates
I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.
― 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
See one promontory, one mountain, one sea, one river and see all.
― 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
I pray Thee, O God, that I may be beautiful within.
― Socrates
The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.
― Socrates
In childhood be modest, in youth temperate, in adulthood just, and in old age prudent.
― Socrates
Nothing is to be preferred before justice.
― Socrates
Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.
― Socrates
The comic and the tragic lie inseparably close, like light and shadow.
― Socrates
I am not an Athenian, nor a Greek, but a citizen of the world.
― Socrates
Happiness is unrepentant pleasure.
― Socrates
The unexamined life is not worth living.
― Socrates
Enjoy yourself — it’s later than you think.
― Socrates
Worthless people love only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.
― Socrates
Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior.
― Socrates
Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?
― Socrates
The envious person grows lean with the fatness of their neighbor.
― Socrates
From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.
― Socrates
An education obtained with money is worse than no education at all.
― Socrates
False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.
― Socrates
The fewer our wants the more we resemble the Gods.
― Socrates
Life contains but two tragedies. One is not to get your heart’s desire; the other is to get it.
― Socrates
A multitude of books distracts the mind.
― 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
Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions, but those who kindly reprove thy faults.
― Socrates
Give me beauty in the inward soul; may the outward and the inward man be at one.
― Socrates
He is rich who is content with the least; for contentment is the wealth of nature.
― Socrates
Remember, no human condition is ever permanent. Then you will not be overjoyed in good fortune nor too scornful in misfortune.
― Socrates
Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.
― Socrates
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
― Socrates
There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.
― Socrates
Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.
― Socrates
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
― Socrates
Remember what is unbecoming to do is also unbecoming to speak of.
― Socrates
Be as you wish to seem.
― Socrates
To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.
― Socrates
Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.
― Socrates
Wisdom is knowing what you don’t know.
― Socrates
You never know a line is crooked unless you have a straight one to put next to it.
― Socrates
It is better to be at odds with the whole world than, being one, to be at odds with myself.
― Socrates
Beauty comes first. Victory is secondary. What matters is joy.
― Socrates
We can do nothing without the body, let us always take care that it is in the best condition to sustain us.
― 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
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
Only the extremely ignorant or the extremely intelligent can resist change.
― Socrates
People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid.
― Socrates
The mind is everything; what you think you become.
― Socrates
It is better to change an opinion than to persist in a wrong one.
― Socrates
Do not do to others what angers you if done to you by others.
― Socrates
Beware the barrenness of a busy life.
― Socrates
Children nowadays are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannise their teachers.
― Socrates
The greatest blessing granted to mankind come by way of madness, which is a divine gift.
― Socrates
There is no possession more valuable than a good and faithful friend.
― Socrates
The years wrinkle our skin, but lack of enthusiasm wrinkles our soul.
― Socrates
The highest realms of thought are impossible to reach without first attaining an understanding of compassion.
― Socrates
The easiest and noblest way is not to be crushing others, but to be improving yourselves.
― Socrates
When you want wisdom and insight as badly as you want to breathe, it is then you shall have it.
― Socrates
To move the world we must move ourselves.
― Socrates
Through your rags I see your vanity.
― Socrates
Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.
― Socrates
I know that I am intelligent because I know that I know nothing.
― Socrates
Are you not ashamed of heaping up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation, and caring so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul?
― Socrates
Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity.
― Socrates
We cannot live better than in seeking to become better.
― Socrates
I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.
― Socrates
There are two kinds of disease of the soul, vice and ignorance.
― 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
Having the fewest wants, I am nearest to the gods.
― Socrates
The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.
― Socrates
Prefer knowledge to wealth, for the one is transitory, the other perpetual.
― Socrates
Get not your friends by bare compliments, but by giving them sensible tokens of your love.
― Socrates
Be nicer than necessary to everyone you meet. Everyone is fighting some kind of battle.
― Socrates
All wars are fought for the acquisition of wealth.
― Socrates
Thou shouldst eat to live; not live to eat.
― Socrates
If you want to be a good saddler, saddle the worst horse; for if you can tame one, you can tame all.
― Socrates
One should never do wrong in return, nor mistreat any man, no matter how one has been mistreated by him.
― Socrates
Be the kind of person that you want people to think you are.
― Socrates
Understanding a question is half the answer.
― Socrates
The greatest way to live with honour in this world is to be what we pretend to be.
― Socrates
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.
― Socrates
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
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
I would rather die having spoken after my manner, than speak in your manner and live.
― Socrates
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
Speak, so that I may see you.
― Socrates
We gain our first measure of intelligence when we first admit our own ignorance.
― Socrates
Justice. If only we knew what it was.
― Socrates
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
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 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
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.
― 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
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.
― 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
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.
― 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
We are in fact convinced that if we are ever to have pure knowledge of anything, we must get rid of the body and contemplate things by themselves with the soul by itself. It seems, to judge from the argument, that the wisdom which we desire and upon which we profess to have set our hearts will be attainable only when we are dead and not in our lifetime.
― Socrates
Well I am certainly wiser than this man. It is only too likely that neither of us has any knowledge to boast of; but he thinks that he knows something which he does not know, whereas I am quite conscious of my ignorance. At any rate it seems that I am wiser than he is to this small extent, that I do not think that I know what I do not know.
― Socrates
To fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise, without being wise: for it is to think that we know what we do not know. For anything that men can tell, death may be the greatest good that can happen to them: but they fear it as if they knew quite well that it was the greatest of evils. And what is this but that shameful ignorance of thinking that we know what we do not know?
― Socrates
Whom do I call educated? First, those who manage well the circumstances they encounter day by day. Next, those who are decent and honorable in their intercourse with all men, bearing easily and good naturedly what is offensive in others and being as agreeable and reasonable to their associates as is humanly possible to be… those who hold their pleasures always under control and are not ultimately overcome by their misfortunes… those who are not spoiled by their successes, who do not desert their true selves but hold their ground steadfastly as wise and sober — minded men.
― Socrates
When desire, having rejected reason and overpowered judgment which leads to right, is set in the direction of the pleasure which beauty can inspire, and when again under the influence of its kindred desires it is moved with violent motion towards the beauty of corporeal forms, it acquires a surname from this very violent motion, and is called love.
― Socrates
If I tell you that I would be disobeying the god and on that account it is impossible for me to keep quiet, you won’t be persuaded by me, taking it that I am ionizing. And if I tell you that it is the greatest good for a human being to have discussions every day about virtue and the other things you hear me talking about, examining myself and others, and that the unexamined life is not livable for a human being, you will be even less persuaded.
― Socrates
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.
― Socrates
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