A list created by Lee Sonogan
Credit to being one of the founders of Western philosophy, he was the first moral thinker in classical Greek Athens. Dying in 399 BC, his most known for his ideas in Ethics and Epistemology. As Socrates did not write down any of his teachings, information about him and his philosophies depends upon secondary sources. In the over 2000 years, his work and quotes continue to be written about.
- “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”
― 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 - “Be slow to fall into friendship, but when you are in, continue firm and constant.”
― Socrates - “Sometimes you put walls up not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to break them down.”
― Socrates - “When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.”
― Socrates - “Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty.”
― Socrates, Essential Thinkers – 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 - “Every action has its pleasures and its price.”
― Socrates - “Envy is the ulcer of the soul.”
― Socrates - “In all of us, even in good men, there is a lawless wild-beast nature, which peers out in sleep.”
― Socrates - “What screws us up the most in life is the picture in our head of what it’s supposed to be.”
― Socrates - “The greatest blessing granted to mankind come by way of madness, which is a divine gift.”
― Socrates - “Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.”
― Socrates - “Understanding a question is half the answer”
― Socrates - “By means of beauty, all beautiful things become beautiful.”
― Socrates -
“I don’t know why I did it, I don’t know why I enjoyed it, and I don’t know why I’ll do it again.”
― Socrates -
“It is better to change an opinion than to persist in a wrong one.”
― Socrates - “To express oneself badly is not only faulty as far as the language goes, but does some harm to the soul.”
― Socrates -
“Is it true; is it kind, or is it necessary?”
― Socrates, Essential Thinkers – Socrates -
“When you want wisdom and insight as badly as you want to breathe, it is then you shall have it.”
― Socrates -
“I know you won’t believe me, but the highest form of Human Excellence is to question oneself and others.”
― Socrates - “He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.”
― Socrates - “The highest realms of thought are impossible to reach without first attaining an understanding of compassion.”
― Socrates -
“I did not care for the things that most people care about– making money, having a comfortable home, high military or civil rank, and all the other activities, political appointments, secret societies, party organizations, which go on in our city . . . I set myself to do you– each one of you, individually and in private– what I hold to be the greatest possible service. I tried to persuade each one of you to concern himself less with what he has than with what he is, so as to render himself as excellent and as rational as possible.”
― Socrates - “Those who are hardest to love need it the most.”
― 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
So much more quotes by Socrates. One day during the year 399 BC, Socrates went on trial and was subsequently found guilty of both corrupting the minds of the youth of Athens and of impiety (not believing in the gods of the state. As a punishment sentenced to death, caused by the drinking of a mixture containing poison hemlock. The man had a lot of good believes that will leave on his legacy for ever.
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