Socrates Quotes & Sayings

“If there is anything beautiful other than absolute beauty, that can only be beautiful as far as it partakes of absolute beauty”

“I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.”

“It would be better for me that multitudes of men should disagree with me rather than that I, being one, should be out of harmony with myself.”

“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.”

“Anyone who holds a true opinion without understanding is like a blind man on the right road.”

“He who is a philosopher or lover of learning, and is entirely pure at departing, is alone permitted to reach the gods.”

“There is no release or salvation from evil except the attainment of the highest virtue and wisdom.”

“He who has lived as a true philosopher has reason to be of good cheer when he is about to die, and that after death he may hope to receive the greatest good in the other world.”

“Never fear, Simmias and Cebes, that a soul which has been thus nurtured and has had these pursuits, will at her departure from the body be scattered and blown away by the winds and be nowhere and nothing.”

“There is no greater evil one can suffer than to hate reasonable discourse.”

“Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.”

“And will he who is a true lover of wisdom, and is persuaded in like manner that only in the world below can he worthily enjoy her, still repine at death? Will he not depart with joy?”

“And this state of the soul is called wisdom.”

“Base men live to eat and drink, and good men eat and drink to live.”

“I myself know nothing, except just a little, enough to extract an argument from another man who is wise and to receive it fairly.”

“The seen is the changing, and the unseen is the unchanging.”

“Either knowledge is not to be attained at all, or if at all, after death.”

“Nothing is to be preferred before justice”

“The body is a source of endless trouble to us by reason of the mere requirement of food; and is also liable to diseases which overtake and impede us in the search after truth.”

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

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

“Is there not one true coin, for which all things ought to exchange?—and that is wisdom”

“If the immortal is also imperishable, the soul when attacked by death cannot perish”

“There is a virtue, Simmias, which is named courage. Is not that a special attribute of the philosopher?”