55 Socrates Quotes on Philosophy, Education and Life

Socrates statue

Socrates was one of the most renowned Greek philosophers of all time. Born in Athens circa 470 BCE, this ancient Greek philosopher laid the groundwork for Western philosophy, paving the way for generations of thinkers to come.

His life unfolded during a pivotal period in ancient Greece, marked by political upheaval, cultural innovation and the flourishing of intellectual inquiry. He did not come from a wealthy or noble background, working instead as a stonemason by trade. 

Despite Socrates' humble beginnings, many today consider him to be the founding father of Western philosophy. Rather than providing answers, Socrates stimulated critical thinking and limitations of one's understanding through a series of probing questions and discussions. His teachings covered a wide range of topics, from ethics to morality and the nature of knowledge. Let's dive into these 55 Socrates quotes.

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55 Socrates Quotes

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

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

3. "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."

4. "I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think."

5. "Be slow to fall into friendship, but when you are in, continue firm and constant."

6. "The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less."

7. "Wonder is the beginning of wisdom."

8. "The unexamined life is not worth living."

9. "Let him who would move the world first move himself."

10. "Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty."

11. "Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people."

12. "Falling down is not a failure. Failure comes when you stay where you have fallen."

13. "To find yourself, think for yourself."

14. "In childhood be modest, in youth temperate, in adulthood just, and in old age prudent."

15. "All I know is that I do not know anything."

16. "An honest man is always a child."

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

18. "The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new."

19. "The misuse of language induces evil in the soul."

20. "Be the kind of person that you want people to think you are."

21. "It is better to change an opinion than to persist in a wrong one."

22. "Beauty is a short-lived tyranny."

23. "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."

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

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

26. "Beauty is the bait which with delight allures man to enlarge his kind."

27. "Nothing is to be preferred before justice."

28. "Be of good cheer about death, and know this of a truth, that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death."

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

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30. "The poets are only the interpreters of the gods."

31. "To be is to do."

32. "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."

33. "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."

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

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

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

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

38. "Living well and beautifully and justly are all one thing."

39. "When you want wisdom and insight as badly as you want to breathe, it is then you shall have it."

40. "Give me beauty in the inward soul; may the outward and the inward man be at one."

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

42. "One who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice; and it is not right to return an injury, or to do evil to any man, however much we have suffered from him."

43. "Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions, but those who kindly reprove thy faults."

44. "To express oneself badly is not only faulty as far as the language goes, but does some harm to the soul."

45. "Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel."

46. "Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder."

47. "Get not your friends by bare compliments, but by giving them sensible tokens of your love."

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

49. "The mind is everything; what you think you become."

50. "The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms."

51. "The greatest blessing granted to mankind come by way of madness, which is a divine gift."

52. "We cannot live better than in seeking to become better."

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

54. "Prefer knowledge to wealth, for the one is transitory, the other perpetual."

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

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