Best Socrates Quotes

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

One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing.

Enjoy yourself -- it's later than you think.

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

The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.

Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.

Whenever, therefore, people are deceived and form opinions wide of the truth, it is clear that the error has slid into their minds through the medium of certain resemblances to that truth.

The fewer our wants the more we resemble the Gods.

An education obtained with money is worse than no education at all

Whom do I call educated? First, those who manage well the circumstances they encounter day by day. Next, those who are decent and honorable in their intercourse with all men, bearing easily and good naturedly what is offensive in others and being as agreeable and reasonable to their associates as is humanly possible to be... those who hold their pleasures always under control and are not ultimately overcome by their misfortunes... those who are not spoiled by their successes, who do not desert their true selves but hold their ground steadfastly as wise and sober -- minded men.

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

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

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

What a lot of things there are a man can do without.

Life contains but two tragedies. One is not to get your heart's desire; the other is to get it.

If I tell you that I would be disobeying the god and on that account it is impossible for me to keep quiet, you won't be persuaded by me, taking it that I am ionizing. And if I tell you that it is the greatest good for a human being to have discussions every day about virtue and the other things you hear me talking about, examining myself and others, and that the unexamined life is not livable for a human being, you will be even less persuaded.

The end of life is to be like God, and the soul following God will be like Him.

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.

I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm; then they might have an unlimited power for doing good.

There is only one good -- knowledge; and only one evil -- ignorance.

To fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise, without being wise: for it is to think that we know what we do not know. For anything that men can tell, death may be the greatest good that can happen to them: but they fear it as if they knew quite well that it was the greatest of evils. And what is this but that shameful ignorance of thinking that we know what we do not know?

Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty.

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

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

Remember, no human condition is ever permanent. Then you will not be overjoyed in good fortune nor too scornful in misfortune.

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.

They are not only idle who do nothing, but they are idle also who might be better employed.

The nearest way to glory is to strive to be what you wish to be thought to be.

Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?

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

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.

From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.

The envious person grows lean with the fatness of their neighbor.

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

The hour of departure has arrived and we go our ways; I to die, and you to live. Which is better? Only God knows.

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

I am not an Athenian, nor a Greek, but a citizen of the world.

Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior.