Socrates Quotes

Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.

This is a universe that does not favor the timid.

The more I know, the more I know that I don't know.

Happiness is unrepented pleasure.

I will not yield to any man contrary to what is right, for fear of death, even if I should die at once for not yielding.

Why should we pay so much attention to what the majority thinks?

Do not do to others what angers you if done to you by others.

To Believe without evidence and demonstration is an act of ignorance and folly

If he who does not know kept silent, discord would cease.

Wisdom is knowing how little we know.

Exercise till the mind feels delight in reposing from the fatigue.

Remember what is unbecoming to do is also unbecoming to speak of.

It is better to make a mistake with full force of your being than to carefully avoid mistakes with a trembling spirit.

In all of us, even in good men, there is a lawless wild-beast nature, which peers out in sleep.

Let the questions be the curriculum.

The individual leads in order that those who are led can develop their potential as human beings and thereby prosper.

The more I learn, the less I realize I know.

My belief is that to have no wants is divine.

Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death.

Virtue is the beauty of the soul.

Envy is the ulcer of the soul.

From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.

I don't care what people say about me. I do care about my mistakes.

Do not go through life like leaf blown from here to there believing whatever you are told.

What most counts is not merely to live, but to live right.

The same wind is blowing, and yet one of us may be cold and the other not.

One ought not to return injustice, nor do evil to anybody in the world, no matter what one may have suffered from them.

How can you call a man free when his pleasures rule over him.

In every sort of danger there are various ways of winning through, if one is ready to do and say anything whatever.

It is better to be at odds with the whole world than, being one, to be at odds with myself.

Man must rise above the Earth - to the top of the atmosphere and beyond - for only thus will he fully understand the world in which he lives.

To be uncertain is to be uncomfortable, but to be certain is to be ridiculous.

God does not deal directly with man: it is by means of spirits that all the intercourse and communication of gods with men, both in waking life and in sleep, is carried on.

It is better to suffer an injustice than to commit one

I shall never fear or avoid things of which I do not know.

No one does wrong voluntarily.

Those who want the fewest things are nearest to the gods.

Is there anyone to whom you entrust a greater number of serious matters than your wife? And is there anyone with whom you have fewer conversations?

By means of beauty all beautiful things become beautiful.

Is it not, then, better to be ridiculous and friendly than clever and hostile?

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

True wisdom lies in one's confession about the limits of one's knowledge.

The comic and the tragic lie inseparably close, like light and shadow.

Go wherever the facts lead.

I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your persons or your properties, but and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul.

If one knows what is right, he will do it; nobody wants to be evil

Every action has its pleasures and its price.

It is a disgrace to grow old through sheer carelessness before seeing what manner of man you may become by developing your bodily strength and beauty to their highest limit.

The first key to greatness is to be in reality what we appear to be.

If you would seek health, look first to the spine.