Socrates Quotes

All men's souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine.

An honest man is always a child.

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

Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm and constant. Socrates Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.

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

Beware the barrenness of a busy life.

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.

Children nowadays are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food and tyrannise their teachers.

Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.

False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.

He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.

I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.

I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.

I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled poets to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.

I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.

I was afraid that by observing objects with my eyes and trying to comprehend them with each of my other senses I might blind my soul altogether.

I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.

If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it.

If all misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart.

If thou continuest to take delight in idle argumentation thou mayest be qualified to combat with the sophists, but will never know how to live with men.

Let him that would move the world first move himself.

My advice to you is get married: if you find a good wife you'll be happy; if not, you'll become a philosopher.

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

Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior.

One who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice; and it is not right to return an injury, or to do evil to any man, however much we have suffered from him.

Our prayers should be for blessings in general, for God knows best what is good for us.

Serenity, regularity, absence of vanity,Sincerity, simplicity, veracity, equanimity, Fixity, non-irritability, adaptability, Humility, tenacity, integrity, nobility, magnanimity, charity, generosity, purity. Practise daily these eighteen "ities" You will soon attain immortality.

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

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.

The poets are only the interpreters of the Gods.

The unexamined life is not worth living.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is a habit.

Wisdom begins in wonder.