Quotes from Socrates

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

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

Whenever, therefore, people are deceived and form opinions wide of the truth, it is clear that the error has slid into their minds through the medium of certain resemblances to that truth.

Are you not ashamed of caring so much for the making of money and for fame and prestige, when you neither think nor care about wisdom and truth and the improvement of your soul?

Trust not a woman when she weeps, for it is her nature to weep when she wants her will.

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

If what you want to tell me is neither True nor Good nor even Useful, why tell it to me at all

My belief is that to have no wants is divine.

If one knows what is right, he will do it; nobody wants to be evil

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

The poets are only the interpreters of the gods.

Fame is the perfume of heroic deeds.

To do is to be.

What most counts is not to live, but to live aright.

He is not only idle who does nothing, but he is idle who might be better employed.

All wars are fought for the acquisition of wealth

All men's souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine.

Four things belong to a judge: to hear courteously, to answer wisely, to consider soberly, and to decide impartially.

If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap, whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be content to take their own and depart.

The fewer our wants, the nearer we resemble the gods.

You think that upon the score of fore-knowledge and divining I am infinitely inferior to the swans. When they perceive approaching death they sing more merrily than before, because of the joy they have in going to the God they serve.

Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers.

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

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.