Socrates Quotes

5th-century BCE Greek philosopher

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Socrates (Σωκράτης; c. 470 BC – 399 BC) was a classical Greek (Athenian) philosopher credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy. Through his portrayal in Plato's dialogues, Socrates has become renowned for his contribution to the field of ethics, and it is this Platonic Socrates who lends his name to the concepts of Socratic irony and the Socratic method, or elenchus. The latter remains a commonly used tool in a wide range of discussions, and is a type of pedagogy in which a series of questions is asked not only to draw individual answers, but also to encourage fundamental insight into the issue at hand.

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Native Name: Σωκράτης

Alternative Names: Sokrates • Sokratis

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Are you not ashamed of heaping up the greatest
amount of money and honour and reputation,
and caring so little about wisdom and
truth and the greatest improvement of the soul?

Be true to thine own self

The unexamined life is not worth living

May the inward and outward man be as one.

True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.

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

I honor and love you: but why do you who are citizens of the great and mighty nation care so much about laying up the greatest amount of money and honor And reputation, and so little amount wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul? Re you not ashamed of these?... I do nothing but go about persuading you all, not to take thought for your persons and your properties, but first and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul. I tell you that virtue is not given by more, but that from virtue comes money and every other good of man.

As to marriage or celibacy, let a man take which course he will, he will be sure to repent.

A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.

Be as you wish to seem

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.

All I know is that I know nothing.

Such as thy words are such will thine affections be esteemed and such as thine affections will be thy deeds and such as thy deeds will be thy life ...

Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity.

And so they grow richer and richer, and the more they think of making a fortune the less they think of virtue; for when riches and virtue are placed together in the scales of the balance, the one always rises as the other falls.