Socrates Quotes

I thought that as I had failed in the contemplation of true existence, I ought to be careful that I did not lose the eye of my soul; as people may injure their bodily eye by observing and gazing on the sun during an eclipse, unless they take the precaution of looking at the image reflected in the water, or in some similar medium. ...I was afraid that my soul might be blinded altogether if I looked at things with my eyes or tried by the help of my senses to apprehend them. And I thought that I had better had recourse to ideas, and seek in them truth in existence. I dare to say that the simile is not perfect—for I am far from admitting that he who contemplates existence through the medium of ideas, sees them only "through a glass darkly," any more than he who sees them in their working and effects.

Nobody is qualified to become a statesman who is entirely ignorant of the problem of wheat.

They give you the semblance of success, I give you the reality...

Alam adalah manusia besar, dan manusia adalah alam kecil.

And now that the hour of departure is appointed to me, this is the hope with which I depart, and not I only, but every man that believes that he has his mind purified.

Craindre la mort, Athéniens, ce n'est autre chose que se croire sage sans l'être, car c'est croire connaître ce que l'on ne connaît point.

My plainness of speech makes them hate me, and what is their hatred but a
proof that I am speaking the truth.

God takes away the minds of poets, and uses them as his ministers, as he also uses diviners and holy prophets, in order that we who hear them may know them to be speaking not of themselves who utter these priceless words in a state of unconsciousness, but that God himself is the speaker, and that through them he is conversing with us.

Η κατανόηση μιας ερώτησης είναι η μισή απάντηση.

Neither 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.

Be as you wish to seem

For the fear of death is indeed the pretense of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being a pretense of knowing the unknown; and no one know whether death, which men in their fear apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good. Is not this ignorance of a disgraceful sort, the ignorance which is the conceit that a man knows that he does not know? And in this respect only I believe myself to differ from men in general, and may perhaps claim to be wiser than they are: that whereas I know but little of the world below, I do not suppose that I know...

If what you want to say is neither true, nor good or kind, nor useful or necessary, please don't say anything at all

Life is full of questions. Idiots are full of answers.

هرچه جستجو کردم کسی را نیافتم که به نادانی خویش اعتراف کند. حال که من میدانم خود از همه نادان ترم، داناترین مردمانم.