Quotes from Socrates

Nosce te ipsum

Everything is plainer when spoken than when unspoken.

each individual can only do one thing well. He can't do lots of things. If he tries, he will be jack of all trades, and master of none.

The really important thing is not live, but to live well.

The answer I gave myself and the oracle was that it was to my advantage to be as I am.

To fear death, gentlemen, is no other then to think oneself wise when one is not, to think one knows what one does not know.

Athenian men, I respect and love you, but I shall obey the god rather than you...

What I do not know, I do not think I know.

True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, & the world around us.

It is only in death that we are truly cured of the 'sickness' of life.

the great honor in the world is to be what we pretend to be

Having the fewest wants, I am nearest to the gods.

The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways - I to die, and you to live. Which is better only god knows.

Is there anyone to whom you entrust a greater number of serious matters than your wife? And is there anyone with whom you have fewer conversations?

As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.

Conocerse a uno mismo, ese es el principio fundamental de la verdadera sabiduría Humana.

We approach truth only inasmuch as we depart from life. For what do we, who love truth, strive after in life? To free ourselves from the body, and from all the evil that is caused by the life of the body! If so, then how can we fail to be glad when death comes to us? The wise man seeks death all his life and therefore death is not terrible to him.

A Life without criticism and status is not a worth living.

I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy, exhorting anyone whom I meet after my manner, and convincing him, saying: O my friend, why do you who are a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of Athens, care so much about laying up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation, and so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all? Are you not ashamed of this?

And in knowing that you know nothing makes you the smartest of all.

Would that the majority could inflict the greatest evils, for they would then be capable of the greatest good, and that would be fine, but now they cannot do either. They cannot make a man either wise or foolish, but they inflict things haphazardly.

Well, then, let's not just trust the likelihood based on painting.

You are wrong sir, if you think that a man who is any good at all should take into account the risk of life or death; he should look to this only in his actions, whether what he does is right or wrong.

Thou should eat to live; not live to eat.