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Socrates (470–399 BC) was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought.
An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no texts and is known mainly through the posthumous accounts of classical writers, particularly his students Plato and Xenophon.
Here is A selection of some of Socrates most famous quotes. Socrates Quotes on Life, Love, Knowledge, Wisdom and Philosophy. Socrates Quotes Gym. Quotes on Intelligence, Education, Success and Self by Socrates.
Famous Quotes and Sayings by Socrates
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.― Socrates
Thou shouldst eat to live; not live to eat.― Socrates
Falling down is not a failure. Failure comes when you stay where you have fallen.― Socrates
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.― Socrates
The unexamined life is not worth living.― Socrates
Beware the barrenness of a busy life.― Socrates
I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think.― Socrates
Understanding a question is half an answer.― Socrates
There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.― Socrates
Life contains but two tragedies. One is not to get your heart’s desire; the other is to get it.― Socrates
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.― Socrates
The hottest love has the coldest end.― Socrates
Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people.― Socrates
Envy is the ulcer of the soul.― Socrates
Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.― Socrates
Be as you wish to seem.― Socrates
To find yourself, think for yourself.― Socrates
I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.― Socrates
Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.― Socrates
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.― Socrates
The greatest way to live with honour in this world is to be what we pretend to be.― Socrates
He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.― Socrates
True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.― Socrates
Be slow to fall into friendship, but when you are in, continue firm and constant.― Socrates
From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.― Socrates
Sometimes you put walls up not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to break them down.― Socrates
Be nicer than necessary to everyone you meet. Everyone is fighting some kind of battle.― Socrates
No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.― Socrates
Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior.― Socrates
The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.― Socrates
My friend... care for your psyche... know thyself, for once we know ourselves, we may learn how to care for ourselves― Socrates
Know thyself.― Socrates
If you want to be a good saddler, saddle the worst horse; for if you can tame one, you can tame all.― Socrates
Let him who would move the world first move himself.― Socrates
The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms.― Socrates
Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty.― Socrates
I pray Thee, O God, that I may be beautiful within.― Socrates
Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.― Socrates
One should never do wrong in return, nor mistreat any man, no matter how one has been mistreated by him.― Socrates
Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for.― Socrates
To fear death, gentlemen, is no other than to think oneself wise when one is not, to think one knows what one does not know. No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew that it is the greatest of evils.― Socrates
If you don't get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don't want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can't hold on to it forever. Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is law and no amount of pretending will alter that reality.― Socrates
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.― Socrates
The really important thing is not to live, but to live well. And to live well meant, along with more enjoyable things in life, to live according to your principles.― Socrates
The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.― Socrates
The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.― Socrates
If a man comes to the door of poetry untouched by the madness of the Muses, believing that technique alone will make him a good poet, he and his sane compositions never reach perfection, but are utterly eclipsed by the performances of the inspired madman.― Socrates
Do not do to others what angers you if done to you by others.― Socrates
Regard your good name as the richest jewel you can possibly be possessed of ― for credit is like fire; when once you have kindled it you may easily preserve it, but if you once extinguish it, you will find it an arduous task to rekindle it again. The way to a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.― Socrates
I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.― Socrates
The easiest and noblest way is not to be crushing others, but to be improving yourselves.― Socrates
Every action has its pleasures and its price.― Socrates
He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.― Socrates
Prefer knowledge to wealth, for the one is transitory, the other perpetual.― Socrates
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.― Socrates
We cannot live better than in seeking to become better.― Socrates
In all of us, even in good men, there is a lawless wild-beast nature, which peers out in sleep.― Socrates
Is it true; is it kind, or is it necessary?― Socrates
Those who are hardest to love need it the most.― Socrates
All I know is that I do not know anything.― Socrates
I only know that I know nothing.― Socrates
Children nowadays are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannise their teachers.― Socrates
The greatest blessing granted to mankind come by way of madness, which is a divine gift.― Socrates
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.― Socrates
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.― Socrates
Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions; but those who kindly reprove thy faults.― Socrates
Give me beauty in the inward soul; may the outward and the inward man be at one.― Socrates
My advice to you is get married: if you find a good wife you'll be happy; if not, you'll become a philosopher.― Socrates
There is no greater evil one can suffer than to hate reasonable discourse.― Socrates
All men's souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine.― Socrates
Are you not ashamed of caring so much for the making of money and for fame and prestige, when you neither think nor care about wisdom and truth and the improvement of your soul?― Socrates
The highest realms of thought are impossible to reach without first attaining an understanding of compassion.― Socrates
Well, although I do not suppose that either of us know anything really beautiful & good, I am better off than he is- for he knows nothing & thinks that he knows; I neither know nor think that I know.― Socrates
To be is to do.― Socrates
My plainness of speech makes them hate me, and what is their hatred but a proof that I am speaking the truth.― Socrates
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.― Socrates
To express oneself badly is not only faulty as far as the language goes, but does some harm to the soul.― Socrates
The mind is everything; what you think you become― Socrates
He is not only idle who does nothing, but he is idle who might be better employed.― Socrates
To move the world we must move ourselves.― Socrates
Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.― Socrates
To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom.― Socrates
The ancient Oracle said that I was the wisest of all the Greeks. It is because I alone, of all the Greeks, know that I know nothing.― Socrates
Virtue does not come from wealth, but wealth, and every other good thing which men have comes from virtue.― Socrates
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.― Socrates
I know you won't believe me, but the highest form of Human Excellence is to question oneself and others.― Socrates
Be true to thine own self.― Socrates
He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.― Socrates
May the inward and outward man be as one.― Socrates
There is no solution; seek it lovingly.― Socrates
Wealth does not bring about excellence, but excellence makes wealth and everything else good for men, both individually and collectively.― Socrates
Through your rags I see your vanity.― Socrates
The more I know, the more I realize I know nothing.― Socrates
The misuse of language induces evil in the soul.― Socrates
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.― Socrates
Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.― Socrates
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.― Socrates
The only thing I know is that I know nothing, and i am no quite sure that i know that.― Socrates
As to marriage or celibacy, let a man take which course he will, he will be sure to repent.― Socrates
It is better to change an opinion than to persist in a wrong one.― Socrates
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.― Socrates
When you want wisdom and insight as badly as you want to breathe, it is then you shall have it.― Socrates
Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity.― Socrates
Intelligent individuals learn from every thing and every one; average people, from their experiences. The stupid already have all the answers.― Socrates
Mankind is made of two kinds of people: wise people who know they're fools, and fools who think they are wise.― Socrates
Living well and beautifully and justly are all one thing.― Socrates
The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.― Socrates
If you want to be wrong then follow the masses.― Socrates
When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.― Socrates
Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.― Socrates
In every person there is a sun. Just let them shine.― Socrates
The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.― Socrates
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is a habit.― Socrates
False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.― Socrates
There is no possession more valuable than a good and faithful friend.― Socrates
Our prayers should be for blessings in general, for God knows best what is good for us.― Socrates
Sometimes you have to let go to see if there was anything worth holding onto.― Socrates
If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it.― Socrates
Silence is a profound melody, for those who can hear it above all the noise.― Socrates
An honest man is always a child.― Socrates