Socrates Quotes

“And now, Athenians, I am not going to argue for my own sake, as you may think, but for yours, that you may not sin against the God by condemning me, who am his gift to you.”

“I showed, not in word only but in deed, that, if I may be allowed to use such an expression, I cared not a straw for death, and that my great and only care was lest I should do an unrighteous or unholy thing.”

“A man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong—acting the part of a good man or of a bad.”

“This, O men of Athens, is the truth and the whole truth; I have concealed nothing, I have dissembled nothing.”

“I am that gadfly which God has attached to the state, and all day long and in all places am always fastening upon you, arousing and persuading and reproaching you.”

“I am certain, O men of Athens, that if I had engaged in politics, I should have perished long ago, and done no good either to you or to myself.”

“I swear to you, Athenians, by the dog I swear!”

“God only is wise; and by his answer he intends to show that the wisdom of men is worth little or nothing; he is not speaking of Socrates, he is only using my name by way of illustration, as if he said, He, O men, is the wisest, who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing.”

“For the fear of death is indeed the pretence of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being a pretence of knowing the unknown; and no one knows whether death, which men in their fear apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good.”

“Some one may wonder why I go about in private giving advice and busying myself with the concerns of others, but do not venture to come forward in public and advise the state. I will tell you why. You have heard me speak at sundry times and in divers places of an oracle or sign which comes to me, and is the divinity which Meletus ridicules in the indictment. This sign, which is a kind of voice, first began to come to me when I was a child; it always forbids but never commands me to do anything which I am going to do. This is what deters me from being a politician.”

“I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue comes money and every other good of man, public as well as private.”

“When I began to talk with him, I could not help thinking that he was not really wise, although he was thought wise by many, and still wiser by himself.”

“I go about the world, obedient to the god, and search and make enquiry into the wisdom of any one, whether citizen or stranger, who appears to be wise; and if he is not wise, then in vindication of the oracle I show him that he is not wise; and my occupation quite absorbs me, and I have no time to give either to any public matter of interest or to any concern of my own, but I am in utter poverty by reason of my devotion to the god.”

“I know that my plainness of speech makes them hate me, and what is their hatred but a proof that I am speaking the truth?”

“The strong arm of that oppressive power did not frighten me into doing wrong.”

“If a man were really able to instruct mankind, to receive money for giving instruction would, in my opinion, be an honour to him.”

“Then I knew that not by wisdom do poets write poetry, but by a sort of genius and inspiration; they are like diviners or soothsayers who also say many fine things, but do not understand the meaning of them.”

“I can give you convincing evidence of what I say, not words only, but what you value far more—actions.”

“So I left him, saying to myself, as I went away: Well, although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is,—for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows; I neither know nor think that I know.”

“I found that the men most in repute were all but the most foolish; and that others less esteemed were really wiser and better.”

“I see that you are indifferent about money, which is a characteristic rather of those who have inherited their fortunes than of those who have acquired them; the makers of fortunes have a second love of money as a creation of their own, resembling the affection of authors for their own poems, or of parents for their children, besides that natural love of it for the sake of use and profit which is common to them and all men. And hence they are very bad company, for they can talk about nothing but the praises of wealth.”

“For the highest reach of injustice is, to be deemed just when you are not.”

“There is nothing which for my part I like better, Cephalus, than conversing with aged men; for I regard them as travellers who have gone a journey which I too may have to go, and of whom I ought to enquire, whether the way is smooth and easy, or rugged and difficult.”

“They ought to be dangerous to their enemies, and gentle to their friends; if not, they will destroy themselves without waiting for their enemies to destroy them.”

“Have you never observed how invincible and unconquerable is spirit and how the presence of it makes the soul of any creature to be absolutely fearless and indomitable?”

“What fault do you find with them? A fault which is most serious, I said; the fault of telling a lie, and, what is more, a bad lie.”

“There is the situation of the city—to find a place where nothing need be imported is wellnigh impossible.”

“I suspect that many will not be satisfied with the simpler way of life.”

“One man cannot practise many arts with success.”

“Shall we just carelessly allow children to hear any casual tales which may be devised by casual persons, and to receive into their minds ideas for the most part the very opposite of those which we should wish them to have when they are grown up?”

“Before walking back to my wife, my home, my friends, and my future, I surveyed the world around me. Socrates was here. He was everywhere. ”

“You cannot attain happiness; it attains you—but only after you surrender everything else.”

“It doesn’t matter what you do, only how well you do it.”

“Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”