Socrates Quotes

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.

How many things there are which I do not want.

The poets are only the interpreters of the gods.

The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our separate ways, I to die, and you to live. Which of these two is better only God knows.

To find the Father of all is hard. And when found, it is impossible to utter Him.

Be true to thine own self

Plato offers the amazing idea that contemplation of the way things really are is, in itself, a purifying process that can bring human beings into the only divinity there is.

No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew it was the greatest of evils.

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

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.

Beware the barrenness of a busy life.

Be slow to fall into friendship but when thou art in continue firm and constant.

No man undertakes a trade he has not learned even the meanest yet every one thinks himself sufficiently qualified for the hardest of all trades - that of government.

By far the greatest and most admirable form of wisdom is that needed to plan and beautify cities and human communities.

Let him who would move the world first move himself.

He is not only idle who does nothing but he is idle who might be better employed.

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

Beauty, like an animal, doesn’t always behave.

Life is about refinement, not perfection. And you still have refining to do.

Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.

To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.

for the best possible state of your soul, as I say to you: Wealth does not bring about excellence, but excellence makes wealth and everything else good for men, both individually and collectively.

Get not your friends by bare compliments, but by giving them sensible tokens of your love.

To find yourself, think for yourself.

I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think

Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents gobble their food and tyrannize their teachers.

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

An honest man is always a child.

...[R]eal wisdom is the property of God, and... human wisdom has little or no value.

As for me all I know is that I know nothing.

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

Wisdom is knowing you know nothing

How can you wonder your travels do you no good, when you carry yourself around with you?

Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.

We cannot live better than in seeking to become better.

I am a citizen not of Athens or Greece but of the world.

wealth does not bring goodness, but goodness brings wealth and every other blessing, both to the individual and to the state

True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.

The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms.

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

I am convinced that I never wrong anyone intentionally...

Be of good cheer about death, and know this of a truth, that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.

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

Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.

When you want wisdom and insight as badly as you want to breathe, it is then you shall have it.

Be as you wish to seem.

Where there is reverence there is fear, but there is not reverence everywhere that there is fear, because fear presumably has a wider extension than reverence.

Be slow to fall into friendship, but when you are in, continue firm and constant.

The Virtue and unpretentiousness of the wise man, which I am talking about, goes unnoticed because of its transparent ordinariness.

True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.