Quotes About Socrates

Freedom of expression in Athens, as readers well know, was not without limits: the vote to convict Socrates may have been democratic, but it nonetheless resulted in the ultimate silencing of his speech.

I think it was Socrates who said if you can't win a one-way argument, just pretend that you can read your opponent's mind.

You know what I'd love to read? A Dialogue between Bron and Shevek and Socrates. Socrates would love it too. I bet he wanted people who argued. You can tell he did, you can tell that's what he loved really, at least in The Symposium.

The Republic isn't as much fun as The Symposium. It's all long speeches, and nobody bursting in drunk to woo Socrates in the middle.

in Socrates' words, he had committed sin by failing to know what was false and what was true.

Irony is the first sign that our consciousness has become conscious, and it passes through two stages: the one represented by Socrates, when he says, 'All I know is that I know nothing,' and the other represented by Sanches,* when he says, 'I don't even know if I know nothing.

In New York one lives in the moment rather more than Socrates advised, so that at a party or alone in your room it will always be difficult to guess at the long term worth of anything.

And although it might be best of all to be Socrates satisfied, having both happiness and depth, we would give up some happiness in order to gain the depth.

Socrates stared abjectly at his right foot, which it had become too much of an ordeal to move. He summoned up an effort of will which, to his consternation, moved one of his forefingers. He tried to make the effort of will to stop it, but could not make the effort of will to make the effort of will. Locked into an infinite regress of incapacity, he stood absolutely still and retreated into the kaleidoscope of unconnected images behind his eyes. One of the nuns wiped a tear from his face

Though it may be the peculiar happiness of Socrates and other geniuses of his stamp, to reason themselves into virtue, the human species would long ago have ceased to exist, had it depended entirely for its preservation on the reasonings of the individuals that compose it. Par 1, 36

The unexamined life is not worth living'...Socrates made provocative remarks like this famous one as part of his daily practice in Athens in the late fourth century B.C. When he made these statements, he was invariably exhorting his fellow Greeks to avoid falling into the trap of what we might call 'ethical complacency,' the point at which an individual ceases trying to become a better person.

I am a conservative. Quite possibly I am on the losing side; often I think so. Yet, out of a curious perversity I had rather lose with Socrates, let us say, than win with Lenin.

This emphasis on the situation was particularly important in order to show that what was central for Socrates was not a fixed point but an ubique et nusquam . It was needed in order to point up the Socratic sensibility which under the subtlest and weakest contact immediately discerned the presence of the Idea, immediately felt the electricity pervading the whole existence.

So then there was the Greek, Socrates, he was great... He invented questioning. Before Socrates, no questioning. Everyone sort of went, ''Yeah, I suppose so.

Socrates: what will happen to my children if I do what my friends are suggesting? Hume: you can't always believe what other people tell you. Descartes: when there's so much disagreement between the authorities, what can we do but go back to basics and start again?

In 80% of Socrates' dialogues there was no constructive outcome. He saw his role as simply pointing out what was "wrong.

Unii povestesc c?, în timp ce Socrate p?r?sea curtea, un admirator devotat, dar cam n?tâng, a început s? se vaite, cel mai greu de suportat pentru el fiind faptul c? Socrate a fost condamnat la moarte pe nedrept. «Cum, r?spunse Socrate, încercând s?-l lini?teasc?, ai fi preferat s? fiu condamnat în mod drept?»

Socrates had been born in Athens in 469 BCE. His career would span the entire second half of the century

Socrates told us, "the unexamined life is not worth living." I think he's calling for curiosity, more than knowledge. In every human society at all times and at all levels, the curious are at the leading edge.

Un mundo de cualidades inversas, porque este universo es estable y real. Sócrates comprendió que este mundo de la verdad está al alcance del hombre a través del pensamiento. Él mostró el camino. Platón recordó la lección y la desarrolló: la vía para llegar a la verdad pasa por los conceptos.

Socrates' demonstration of the defect in the officers' concept of courage has some important implications. A commander who believed that ordering a retreat was cowardly would be severely constrained in his options; one who had a broader definition would have more tactical choices.

Socrates' cave represents the world of our "received beliefs." Each of us harbors a myriad of ideas, attitudes, and opinions that have been "programmed" into us by our upbringing, schooling, culture, and social and media environment. The "chains" that bind us to these ideas are our understandable desire to please others, to be accepted, and to save ourselves the effort of thinking things through ourselves.

3. Challenge your mind to make significant judgments. To Socrates, the capacity to judge for ourselves was the expression of our human dignity. No oracle, no law, no assumed belief, no unanimously held opinion was exempt from our examination of its validity.

Socrates immersed himself in the cutting-edge intellectual work of his day, then transcended it. He took advantage of the fact that the most exciting thinkers in the Western world were drawn to Athens. He sought them out, learned what they had to teach, then challenged what he had learned to enhance his own understanding.