Socrates Quotes

It looks as if I was cleverer than Daedalus in using my skill, my friend, insofar as he could only cause to move the things he made himself, but I can make other people’s move as well as my own. And the smartest part of my skill is that I am clever without wanting to be, for I would rather have your statements to me remain unmoved than possess the wealth of Tantalus as well as the cleverness of Daedalus

From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.

He who is not contented with what he has, will not be contented with what he would like to have.

The unexamined life is not worth living.

Now the hour to part has come. I go to die, you go to live. Which of us goes to the better lot is known to no one, except the god.

Ojalá Critón, que la mayoría fuera capaz de llevar a cabo los mayores males, con tal de que fuera capaz de realizar los mayores bienes, que entonces todo iría bellamente. Mas, por el contrario, de ninguna de las dos cosas son capaces, que no pueden hacer ni lo sensato ni lo insensato, sino tan solo lo que les salga a la ventura

The being of all virtues, and chiefly of temperance, depends on the practice of them.

I would not have him sorrow at my hard lot, or say at the burial, Thus we lay out Socrates, or, Thus we follow him to the grave or bury him; for false words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil. Be of good cheer then, my good Crito, and say that you are burying my body only, and do with that as is usual, and as you think best.

Rhythm and harmony permeate the innermost element of the soul, affect it more powerfully than anything else, and bring it grace, such education makes one graceful if one is properly trained, and the opposite if one is not.

Aku tahu bahwa aku tidak tahu apa-apa

Wisdom is knowing you know nothing

...a good man cannot be harmed either in life or in death, and that his affairs are not neglected by the gods.

Strong minds discuss ideals; average minds discuss events; weak minds discuss people.

And thus one man makes a vortex all round and steadies the earth by the heaven; another gives the air as support for the earth, which is sort of a broad trough. Any power which in disposing them as they are disposes them for the best never enters into their minds, not do they imagine that there is any superhuman strength in that; they rather expect to find another Atlas of the world who is stronger and more everlasting and more containing than the good is, and are clearly of the opinion that the obligatory and containing power of the good is as nothing; and yet this is the principle which I would fain learn if anyone would teach me. But as I have failed either to discover myself or to learn of anyone else, the nature of the best, I will exhibit to you, if you like, what I have found to be the second best mode of inquiring into the cause.

...[T]hese people... are my dangerous accusers; because those who hear them suppose that anyone who inquires into such matters... theories about the heavens... and everything below the earth... must be an atheist.