Quotes About Socrates

Facts which are not compounded of other facts are what Mr Wittgenstein calls Sachverhalle, whereas a fact which may consist of two or more facts is called a Tatsache: thus, for example, Socrates is wise is a Sachverhalt, as well as a Tatsache, whereas Socrates is wise and Plato is his pupil is a Tatsache but not a Sachverhalt. He compares

If Ave say Plato loves Socrates, the word loves which occurs between the word Plato and the word Socrates establishes a certain relation between these two words, and it is owing to this fact that our sentence is able to assert a relation between the person's name by the words Plato and Socrates. We must not say, the complex sign ' a R b' says 'a stands in a certain relation R to b' ; but we must say, that ' a' stands in a certain relation to 'b' says that a R b (3.1432)• Mr

Socrates and Jesus, two teachers of virtue and love, were executed because of the unsettling, threatening power of their souls, which was revealed in their personal lives and in their words.

Socrates—were

He said, repeating the opinion of Socrates in the Phaedrus, that a tree, so beautiful to look at, never spoke a word and that conversation was possible only in the city, between men.

Socrates defines his life's mission as awakening the Athenians to the supreme importance of attending to their souls. His timeless plea that we connect to ourselves remains the only way for any of us to truly thrive.

Socrates, after all, could be an intensely annoying man, all the time questioning passers-by until they became exasperated.

Those moralists, on the other hand, who, following in the footsteps of Socrates, offer the individual a morality of self-control and temperance as a means to his own advantage, as his personal key to happiness, are the exceptions.

Socrates, the dialectical hero of the Platonic drama, reminds us of the kindred nature of the Euripidean hero who must defend his actions with arguments and counterarguments and in the process often risks the loss of our tragic pity; for who could mistake the optimistic element in the nature of the dialectic, which celebrates a triumph with every conclusion and can breathe only in cool clarity and consciousness.

Dionysus had already been scared form the tragic stage, by a demonic power speaking through Euripides. Even Euripides was, in a sense, only a mask: the deity that spoke through him was neither Dionysus nor Apollo, but an altogether newborn demon, called Socrates .

Did he even grasp this himself, this cleverest of all self-outwitters? Did he tell himself this in the end, in the wisdom of his courage in the face of death? . . . Socrates wanted to die: not Athens, but he gave himself the poison cup, he forced Athens to give him the poison cup . . . "Socrates is no doctor," he said to himself softly, "death is the only doctor here . . . Socrates himself has just been sick for a long time.

Socrate considérait que c'est un mal qui n'est pas loin de la folie, de s'imaginer que l'on possède une vertu, alors qu'on ne la possède pas. Certes, une pareille illusion est plus dangereuse que l'illusion contraire qui consiste à croire que l'on souffre d'un défaut, d'un vice. Deuxième Considération intempestive, ch. 6

Wherever authority is still part of accepted usage and one does not 'give reasons' but commands, the dialectician is a kind of buffoon: he is laughed at, he is not taken seriously. – Socrates was the buffoon who got himself taken seriously: what was really happening when that happened?

He fascinated because he touched on the agonal instinct of the Hellenes – he introduced a variation into the wrestling-matches among the youths and young men. Socrates was also a great erotic.

How the modern world needs a Socrates, who used to walk into the market place of Athens asking people questions in order to make them discover themselves! True, he was put to death for unmasking others, but he left the world the heritage of "know thyself." Guide to Contentment, 80

Confronted with the choice between having time and having things, we've chosen to have things. Today it is a luxury to read what Socrates said, not because the books are expensive, but because our time is scarce.

I would have been completely brainwashed by this lopsided and racist view of the world if it weren't for my father. He was a deep thinker and an irrepressible problem solver. He was a Black Socrates, asking why and then spoiling ready-made replies.

His mood is one of strenuous weariness; he does his duty as a good soldier, waiting for the sound of the trumpet which shall sound the retreat; he has not that cheerful confidence which led Socrates through a life no less noble, to a death which was to bring him into the company of gods he had worshipped and men whom he had revered.

There is also a tradition about Socrates. He liked walking, it is recorded, until a late hour of the evening, and when someone asked him why he did this he said he was trying to work up an appetite for his dinner.

There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent.

For Plato, then, all certain knowledge requires an element of abstraction from concrete reality. Through Socrates, Plato tells us to constantly reach for the highest level of knowledge beyond mere individual examples, toward a universal standard for judgment that will give us a stronger, more confident position for acting in the world.

The Cynics, too, had Socratic roots. Their founder, Antisthenes, had known both Socrates and Plato personally

Above all, he seems to have taken from Socrates the notion that man's freedom depends completely on the state of our soul, not on some physical or material condition; and on our capacity to endure adversity and to be indifferent to our outward fate.

No one can ever know true Justice or Beauty in his mortal lifetime. He can, however, make the search for that higher knowledge his life's work, just as Socrates did.