Socrates Quotes

I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.

Rather you marry or not,
you'll regret.

[In the world below...] those who appear to have lived neither well not ill, go to the river Acheron, and mount such conveyances as they can get, and are carried in them to the lake, and there they dwell and are purified of their evil deeds, and suffer the penalty of the wrongs which they have done to others, and are absolved, and receive the rewards of their good deeds according to their deserts. But those who appear to be incurable by reason of the greatness of their crimes—who have committed many and terrible deeds of sacrilege, murders foul and violent, or the like—such are hurled into Tartarus, which is their suitable destiny, and they never come out. Those again who have committed crimes, which, although great, are not unpardonable—who in moment of anger, for example, have done violence to a father or a mother, and have repented for the remainder of their lives, or who have taken the life of another under like extenuating circumstances—these are plunged into Tartarus, the pains of which they are compelled to undergo for a year, but at the end of the year the wave casts them forth—mere homicides by way of Cocytus, patricides and matricides by Pyriphlegethon—and they are borne to the Acherusian Lake, and here they lift up their voices and call upon the victims whom they have slain or wronged, to have pity on them, and to receive them, and to let them come out of the river into the lake. And if they prevail, then they come forth and cease from their troubles; but if not, they are carried back again into Tartarus and from thence into the rivers unceasingly, until they obtain mercy from those whom they have wronged: for this is the sentence inflicted upon them by their judges.

...[M]en are put in a sort of guard-post, from which one must not release one's self or run away...

ὁ ... ἀνεξέταστος βίος οὐ βιωτὸς ἀνθρώπῳ... An unexamined life is not worth living

I know I'm intelligent because I know that I know nothing.

Those also who are remarkable for having led holy lives are released from this earthly prison, and go to their pure home which is above, and dwell in the purer earth; and those who have duly purified themselves with philosophy live henceforth altogether without the body, in mansions fairer far than these...

If generation were in a straight line only, and there were no compensation or circle in nature, no turn or return into one another, then you know that all things would at last have the same form and pass into the same state, and there would be no more generation of them.

Wealth does not bring about excellence, but excellence makes wealth and everything else good for men, both individually and collectively.

A man who really fights for justice must lead a private, not a public, life if he is to survive for even a short time.

"Someone might say: " Are you not ashamed, Socrates, to have followed the kind of occupation that has led to your being now in danger of death?" Howeverm, I should be right to reply to him: "You are wrong, sir, if you think that a man who is any good at all should take into account the risk of life or death; he should look to this only in his actions, whether what he does is right or wrong, whether he is acting like a good or bad man

I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know.

we should not become misologues, as people become misan- d
thropes. There is no greater evil one can suffer than to hate reasonable
discourse. Misology and misanthropy arise in the same way. Misanthropy comes when a man without knowledge or skill has placed great
trust in someone and believes him to be altogether truthful, sound, and
trustworthy; then, a short time afterwards he finds him to be wicked
and unreliable, and then this happens in another case; when one has
frequently had that experience, especially with those whom one believed e
to be one’s closest friends, then, in the end, after many such blows,
one comes to hate all men and to believe that no one is sound in any
way at all.

In the course of my life I have often had intimations in dreams "that I should make music." The same dream came to me sometimes in one form, and sometimes in another, but always saying the same or nearly the same words: Make and cultivate music, said the dream. And hitherto I imagined that this was only intended to exhort and encourage me in the study of philosophy, which has always been the pursuit of my life, and is the noblest and best of music.

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