Quotes by Socrates

About Socrates:

Socrates is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon and the plays of his contemporary Aristophanes. Plato's dialogues are among the most comprehensive accounts of Socrates to survive from antiquity, though it is unclear the degree to which Socrates himself is "hidden behind his 'best disciple', Plato".
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I only know that I know nothing

Socrates

I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think

Socrates

Wen das Wort nicht schlägt, den schlägt auch der Stock nicht.

Socrates

The misuse of language induces evil in the soul

Socrates

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 ma...

Socrates

All I know is that I do not know anything

Socrates

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...

Socrates

Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.

Socrates

Beauty is the bait which with delight allures man to enlarge his kind.

Socrates

He is a man of courage who does not run away, but remains at his post and fights against the enemy.

Socrates

Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.

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

The end of life is to be like God, and the soul following God will be like Him.

Socrates

The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.

Socrates

By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.

Socrates

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

Socrates

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

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

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

Socrates

True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.

Socrates

Author Bio

  • NameSocrates
  • Descriptionclassical Greek Athenian philosopher, tutor of Plato
  • AliasesS?krát?s; Sokrates
  • Born470 BCE
  • Died399 BCE
  • CountryClassical Athens
  • ProfessionPhilosopher