We all have come across this name: Socrates. He was a Greek philosopher and a logician. He is renowned for his contribution to the field of ethics. He was an important influence on Plato (427–347 B.C.E.) and had a major effect on ancient philosophy. There are many Socrates quotes that help people know themselves a little better.
Here are some amazing Socrates quotes on love, youth, and philosophy – that will hopefully trigger your philosophical side.
50 Quotes By Socrates: The Wisest Man Ever
1. “Employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for.”
2. “Let him who would move the world first move himself.”
3. “The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.”
4. “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”
5. “I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.”
6. “Prefer knowledge to wealth, for the one is transitory, the other perpetual.”
7. “Understanding a question is half an answer”
8. “True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us”
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9. “He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.”
10. “To be is to do”
11. “The mind is everything; what you think you become”
12. “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”
13. “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
14. “There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.”
15. “I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think”
16. “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
17. “Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people.”
18. “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.”
19. “He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.”
20. “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.”
21. “Sometimes you put walls up not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to break them down.”
22. “Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.”
23. “To find yourself, think for yourself.”
24. “Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.”
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25. “Be slow to fall into friendship, but when you are in, continue firm and constant.”
26. “When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.”
27. “In childhood be modest, in youth temperate, in adulthood just, and in old age prudent.”
28. “Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.”
29. “My friend…care for your psyche…know thyself, for once we know ourselves, we may learn how to care for ourselves.”
30. “The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.”
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31. “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.”
32. “Do not do to others what angers you if done to you by others.”
33. “Every action has its pleasures and its price.”
34. “Prefer knowledge to wealth, for the one is transitory, the other perpetual.”
35. “The easiest and noblest way is not to be crushing others, but to be improving yourselves.”
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36. “Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions; but those who kindly reprove thy faults.”
37. “They are not only idle who do nothing, but they are idle also who might be better employed.”
38. “Where there is reverence there is fear, but there is not reverence everywhere that there is fear, because fear presumably has a wider extension than reverence.”
39. “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.”
40. “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.”
41. “Nature has given us two ears, two eyes, and but one tongue-to the end that we should hear and see more than we speak.”
42. “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.”
43. “The nearest way to glory is to strive to be what you wish to be thought to be.”
44. “Worthless people love only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.”
45. “Fame is the perfume of heroic deeds.”
46. “The envious person grows lean with the fatness of their neighbor.”
47. “False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.”
48. “Life contains but two tragedies. One is not to get your heart’s desire; the other is to get it.”
49. “Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity or undue depression in adversity.”
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Which one was your favorite of the lot? Let us know your favorites in the comments down below!
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