Socrates Quotes

“The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death.”

“Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius. Pay it and do not neglect it.”

“To need nothing is divine, and to need as little as possible comes nearest to the divine.”

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

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

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

“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.”

“The being of all virtues, and chiefly of temperance, depends on the practice of them.”

“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 inexperienced in wisdom and virtue, ever occupied with feasting and such, wander their whole life long, neither ever looking upward to the truth above them nor tasting pure and lasting pleasures.”

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

“Each of these private teachers who work for pay inculcates nothing else than the opinions of the multitude, and calls this knowledge wisdom.”

“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.”

“The poets are only the interpreters of the gods.”

“Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.”

“By means of beauty all beautiful things become beautiful.”

“Oh dear Pan and all the other gods of this place, grant that I may be beautiful inside. Let all my external possessions be in friendly harmony with what is within. May I consider the wise man rich.”

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

“Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?”

“Where there is reverence there is fear, but there is not reverence everywhere that there is fear.”

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

“You will know that the divine is so great and of such a nature that it sees and hears everything at once, is present everywhere, and is concerned with everything.”

“Has a philosopher like you failed to discover that our country is more to be valued and higher and holier far than mother or father or any ancestor?”

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

“I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.”