Socrates Quotes

“[N]either in war nor yet at law ought any man to use every way of escaping death. For often in battle there is no doubt that if a man will throw away his arms, and fall on his knees before his pursuers, he may escape death; and in other dangers there are other ways of escaping death, if a man is willing to say and do anything. The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death.”

“Marry a good woman, and be happy the rest of your life. Or, marry a bad, and become a good philosopher”

“One who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice.”

“All things in moderation, including moderation.”

“The nearest way to glory a shortcut, as it were is to strive to be what you wish to be thought to be.”

“Why do you wonder that globetrotting does not help you, seeing that you always take yourself with you? The reason that set you wandering is ever at your heels.”

“The really important thing is not to live, but to live well. And to live well meant, along with more enjoyable things in life, to live according to your principles.”

“What a lot of things there are a man can do without.”

“What a lot of things I don't need.”

“When desire, having rejected reason and overpowered judgment which leads to right, is set in the direction of the pleasure which beauty can inspire . . .”

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

“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.”

“To give either to any public matter of interest or to any concern of my own, but I am in utter poverty by reason of my devotion to the god .”

“Nothing is so well learned as that which is discovered.”

“Our lives are but specks of dust falling through the fingers of time. Like sands of the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.”

“When you want success as badly as you want the air, then you will get it. There is no other secret of success.”

“The greatest of all mysteries is the man himself.”

“Since I am convinced that I wrong no one, I am not likely to wrong myself.”

“Lies are the greatest murder. They kill the Truth.”

“Why should I resent it when an ass kicks me?”

“Whoever would have his body supple, easy and healthful should learn to dance.”

“And the same things look bent and straight when seen in water and out of it, and also both concave and convex, due to the sight's being mislead by the colors, and every sort of confusion of this kind is plainly in our soul. And, then, it is because they take advantage of this affection in our nature that shadow painting, and puppeteering, and many other tricks of the kind fall nothing short of wizardry.”

“The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.”

“No one can teach, if by teaching we mean the transmission of knowledge, in any mechanical fashion, from one person to another. The most that can be done is that one person who is more knowledgeable than another can, by asking a series of questions, stimulate the other to think, and so cause him to learn for himself.”

“Silence is a profound melody, for those who can hear it above all the noise.”