Socrates was a classical Greek (Athenian) philosopher credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, and as being the first moral philosopher, of the Western ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, he made no writings, and is known chiefly through the accounts of classical writers writing after his lifetime, particularly his students Plato and Xenophon. Plato’s dialogues are among the most comprehensive accounts of Socrates to survive from antiquity.
Through his portrayal in Plato’s dialogues, Socrates has become renowned for his contribution to the fields of ethics and epistemology. Socrates exerted a strong influence on philosophers in later antiquity and in the modern era. Depictions of Socrates in art, literature and popular culture have made him one of the most widely known figures in the Western philosophical tradition.
Some of the best quotes from Socrates are listed below.
- “Be as you wish to seem.” – Socrates
- “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” – Socrates
- “Be nicer than necessary to everyone you meet. Everyone is fighting some kind of battle.” – Socrates
- “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.” – Socrates
- “Be the kind of person that you want people to think you are.” – Socrates
- “Do not do to others what angers you if done to you by others.” – Socrates
- “Employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.” – Socrates
- “Enjoy yourself — it’s later than you think.” – Socrates
- “Every action has its pleasures and its price.” – Socrates
- “Everyone wants to tell you what to do and what’s good for you. They don’t want you to find your own answers, they want you to believe theirs.” – Socrates
- “Falling down is not a failure. Failure comes when you stay where you have fallen.” – Socrates
- “False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.” – Socrates
- “He is a man of courage who does not run away, but remains at his post and fights against the enemy.” – Socrates
- “He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.” – Socrates
- “He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.” – Socrates
- “I call myself a peaceful warrior because the battles we fight are on the inside.” – Socrates
- “I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think.” – Socrates
- “I know you won’t believe me, but the highest form of human excellence is to question oneself and others.” – Socrates
- “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.” – Socrates
- “If you want to be a good saddler, saddle the worst horse; for if you can tame one, you can tame all.” – Socrates
- “It is better to change an opinion than to persist in a wrong one.” – Socrates
- “It is not living that matters, but living rightly.” – Socrates
- “Know thyself” – Socrates
- “Life is full of questions. Idiots are full of answers.” – Socrates
- “My friend…care for your psyche…know thyself, for once we know ourselves, we may learn how to care for ourselves.” – Socrates
- “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.” – Socrates
- “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.” – Socrates
- “Nothing is to be preferred before justice.” – Socrates
- “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.” – Socrates
- “Our prayers should be for blessings in general, for God knows best what is good for us.” – Socrates
- “Prefer knowledge to wealth, for the one is transitory, the other perpetual.” – Socrates
- “Remember, no human condition is ever permanent. Then you will not be overjoyed in good fortune nor too scornful in misfortune.” – Socrates
- “Remember, no human condition is ever permanent.” – Socrates
- “Silence is a profound melody, for those who can hear it above all the noise.” – Socrates
- “Slanderers do not hurt me because they do not hit me.” – Socrates
- “Smart people learn from everything and everyone, average people from their experiences, stupid people already have all the answers.” – Socrates
- “Sometimes you put walls up not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to break them down.” – Socrates
- “Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people.” – Socrates
- “The easiest and noblest way is not to be crushing others, but to be improving yourselves.” – Socrates
- “The fewer our wants the more we resemble the Gods.” – Socrates
- “The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.” – Socrates
- “The highest realms of thought are impossible to reach without first attaining an understanding of compassion.” – Socrates
- “The mind is everything; what you think you become.” – Socrates
- “The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.” – Socrates
- “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” – Socrates
- “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” – Socrates
- “The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.” – Socrates
- “The shortest and surest way to live with honour in the world, is to be in reality what we would appear to be; and if we observe, we shall find, that all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice of them.” – Socrates
- “The value of a man is measured in the number of those who stand beside him, not those who follow.” – Socrates
- “The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.” – Socrates
- “There are two kinds of disease of the soul, vice and ignorance.” – Socrates
- “There is no possession more valuable than a good and faithful friend.” – Socrates
- “There is only one good — knowledge; and only one evil — ignorance.” – Socrates
- “They are not only idle who do nothing, but they are idle also who might be better employed.” – Socrates
- “Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions, but those who kindly reprove thy faults.” – Socrates
- “Those who are hardest to love, need it the most.” – Socrates
- “To find yourself, think for yourself.” – Socrates
- “To move the world we must move ourselves.” – Socrates
- “True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.” – Socrates
- “Understanding a question is half the answer.” – Socrates
- “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” – Socrates
- “We cannot live better than in seeking to become better.” – Socrates
- “What a lot of things there are a man can do without.” – Socrates
- “What screws us up the most in life is the picture in our heads of what it’s supposed to be.” – Socrates
- “When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.” – Socrates
- “Wisdom begins in wonder.” – Socrates
- “Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.” – Socrates
