Socrates Quotes

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

There is one way, then, in which a man can be free from all anxiety about the fate of his soul - if in life he has abandoned bodily pleasures and adornments, as foreign to his purpose and likely to do more harm than good, and has devoted himself to the pleasures of acquiring knowledge, and so by decking his soul not with a borrowed beauty but with its own - with self-control, and goodness, and courage, and liberality, and truth - has fitted himself to await his journey in the next world.

Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty.

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.

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.

To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.

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

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

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

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 a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.

How many things can I do without?

Know thyself.

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

One who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice; and it is not right to return an injury, or to do evil to any man, however much we have suffered from him.

Do not trouble about those who practice philosophy, whether they are good or bad; but examine the thing itself well and carefully. And if philosophy appears a bad thing to you, turn every man from it, not only your sons; but if it appears to you such as I think it to be, take courage, pursue it, and practice it, as the saying is, 'both you and your house.

Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.

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

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.

It seems to me that whatever else is beautiful apart from absolute Beauty is beautiful because it partakes of that absolute Beauty, and for no other reason... [I]t is by Beauty that beautiful things are beautiful.

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

...I have had a remarkable experience. In the past the prophetic voice to which I have become accustomed has always been my constant companion, opposing me even in quite trivial things if I was going to take the wrong course. Now something has happened to me, as you can see, which might be thought and is commonly considered to be a supreme calamity; yet neither when I left home this morning, nor when I was taking my place here in court, nor at any point in any part of my speech did the divine sign oppose me. In other discussions it has often checked me in the middle of a sentence; but this time it has never opposed me in any part of this business in anything that I have said or done. What do I suppose to be the explanation? I will tell you. I suspect that this thing that has happened to me is a blessing, and we are quite mistaken in supposing death to be an evil. I have good grounds for thinking this, because my accustomed sign could not have failed to oppose me if what I was doing had not been sure to bring some good result.

Get not your friends by bare compliments, but by giving them sensible tokens of your love.

The misuse of language induces evil in the soul

The poets are only the interpreters of the gods.

Do you imagine that a city can continue to exist and not be turned upside down, if the legal judgments which are pronounced in it have no force but are nullified and destroyed by private persons?

Fame is the perfume of heroic deeds.

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.

I am convinced that I never wrong anyone intentionally...

To fear death, gentlemen, is no other than to think oneself wise when one is not, to think one knows what one does not know. No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew that it is the greatest of evils.

If a man would move the world he must first move himself.