Socrates Quotes

"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing."

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

"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."

"True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing."

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

"Wisdom begins in wonder."

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

"I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing."

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

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

"Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior."

"Beware the barrenness of a busy life."

"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."

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

"An honest man is always a child."

"Death may be the greatest of all human blessings."

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

"Let him that would move the world first move himself."

"The unexamined life is not worth living."

"Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live."

"Beauty is a short-lived tyranny."

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

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

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

"Be as you wish to seem."

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

"It is not living that matters, but living rightly."

"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."

"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."

"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."