Quotes About Socrates

Behold, he said, the wisdom of Socrates; he refuses to teach himself, and goes about learning of others, to whom he never even says Thank you.

What you should do, said Socrates, is to say a magic spell over him every day until you have charmed his fears away.

Tell me, Socrates, have you got a nurse? Why do you ask such a question, I said, when you ought rather to be answering? Because she leaves you to snivel, and never wipes your nose: she has not even taught you to know the shepherd from the sheep. What makes you say that? I replied.

What is probable, gentlemen, is that in fact the god is wise and that his oracular response meant that human wisdom is worth little or nothing, and that when he says this man, Socrates, he is using my name as an example, as if he said: This man among you, mortals, is wisest who, like Socrates, understands that his wisdom is worthless.

I am amused, Socrates, at your making a distinction between one who is a relation and one who is not a relation; for surely the pollution is the same in either case

longest of his works

It has been objected that justice is honesty in the sense of Glaucon and Adeimantus, but is taken by Socrates to mean all virtue.

all started at the Temple of Apollo In Delphi. One of his friends approached the oracle with the question: "Is anyone wiser than Socrates?" the answer was "No." Socrates was profoundly puzzled by this episode. He claimed to know

SOCRATES: And is then all that is just pious? Or is all that is pious just, but not all that is just pious, but some of it is and some is not? [12] EUTHYPHRO: I do not follow what you are saying, Socrates.

You ask a question, I said, to which a reply can only be given in a parable. Yes, Socrates; and that is a way of speaking to which you are not at all accustomed, I suppose.

Socrates is an evil-doer, and a curious person, who searches into things under the earth and in heaven, and he makes the worse appear the better cause; and he teaches the aforesaid doctrines to others.

CALLICLES: There is no end to the rubbish this fellow speaks. Tell me, Socrates, aren't you ashamed at your age of laying these verbal traps and counting it a god-send if a man makes a slip of the tongue?

Éste es en general el error de la juventud: contentarse con semiverdades y creer conocer lo que no conoce; sobre todo, éste era el de la juventud ateniense en la época de Sócrates y de Platón, viciada como estaba por los sofistas.

But then, I said, speaking the truth and paying your debts is not a correct definition of justice. Quite correct, Socrates, if Simonides is to be believed, said Polemarchus interposing. I

This early dialogue features the charismatic young politician Alcibiades in conversation with Socrates.

Anything but madmen, Socrates; the young men are much madder who pay them money; and madder still those, their relations, who entrust young people to them; maddest of all, the cities which allow them to come in and do not kick them

It looks, Socrates, as though I didn't know what I was talking about then.

There have been times, Socrates, when I have been driven in my perplexity to take refuge with Protagoras; not that I agree with him at all.

el más sabio entre vosotros es aquel que reconoce, como Sócrates, que su sabiduría no es nada.»

SOCRATES: But you do say that he who is a good rhapsode is also a good general. ION: Certainly.

Because you seem not to be aware that any one who has an intellectual affinity to Socrates and enters into conversation with him is liable to be drawn into an argument; and whatever subject he may start, he will be continually carried round and round by him, until at last he finds that he has to give an account both of his present and past life; and when he is once entangled, Socrates will not let him go until he has completely and thoroughly sifted him.

After a moment's pause, in which he made a real manly effort to think, he said: My opinion is, Socrates, that temperance makes a man ashamed or modest, and that temperance is the same as modesty. Very good, I said; and did you not admit, just now, that temperance is noble?

SOCRATES: What events? POLUS: You see, I presume, that Archelaus the son of Perdiccas is now the ruler of Macedonia? SOCRATES: At any rate I hear that he is. POLUS: And do you think that he is happy or miserable? SOCRATES: I cannot say, Polus, for I have never had any acquaintance with him.

SOCRATES: On the other hand, if the unjust be not punished, then, according to you, he will be happy? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: But in my opinion, Polus, the unjust or doer of unjust actions is miserable in any case,—more miserable, however, if he be not punished and does not meet with retribution, and less miserable if he be punished and meets with retribution at the hands of gods and men. POLUS: You are maintaining a strange doctrine, Socrates.