Socrates is one of the most quoted philosophers of all time. His teachings have been influential for centuries, and his ideas are still studied by philosophers today. This collection has over 200 of the best quotes by Socrates.
Socrates – Philosopher
Socrates was a classical Greek philosopher credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy.
Known for his philosophical teachings and for his trial and execution, his legacy continues to influence Western thought.
Famous Socrates Quotes
All thinking begins with wondering.
– Socrates
Whatever authority I may have rests solely on knowing how little I know.
– Socrates
Let the questions be the curriculum.
– Socrates
The tongue of a fool is the key of his counsel, which, in a wise man, wisdom hath in keeping.
– Socrates
To be is to do.
– Socrates
Know thyself.
– Socrates
I don’t care what people say about me. I do care about my mistakes.
– Socrates
Do not grieve over someone who changes all of the sudden. It might be that he has given up acting and returned to his true self.
– Socrates
The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.
– Socrates
Living well and beautifully and justly are all one thing.
– Socrates
The years wrinkle our skin, but lack of enthusiasm wrinkles our soul.
– Socrates
Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.
– Socrates
As to marriage or celibacy, let a man take which course he will, he will be sure to repent.
– Socrates
If one knows what is right, he will do it; nobody wants to be evil.
– Socrates
Falling down is not a failure. Failure comes when you stay where you have fallen.
– Socrates
By far the greatest and most admirable form of wisdom is that needed to plan and beautify cities and human communities.
– Socrates
The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.
– Socrates
Best Socrates Quotes
Just as you ought not to attempt to cure eyes without head or head without body, so you should not treat body without soul.
– Socrates
All men’s souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine.
– Socrates
Either I do not corrupt the young or, if I do, it is unwillingly.
– Socrates
Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty.
– Socrates
I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.
– Socrates
True wisdom lies in one’s confession about the limits of one’s knowledge.
– Socrates
The nearest way to glory a shortcut, as it were is to strive to be what you wish to be thought to be.
– Socrates
In every one of us there are two ruling and directing principles, whose guidance we follow wherever they may lead; the one being an innate desire of pleasure; the other, an acquired judgment which aspires after excellence.
– Socrates
He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.
– Socrates
The first key to greatness is to be in reality what we appear to be.
– Socrates
Athletics have become professionalized.
– Socrates
Get not your friends by bare compliments but by giving them sensible tokens of your love.
– Socrates
A multitude of books distracts the mind.
– Socrates
Only the knowledge that comes from inside is the real Knowledge.
– Socrates
I am a Citizen of the World, and my Nationality is Goodwill.
– Socrates
Quotes by Socrates
Wisdom is knowing how little we know.
– Socrates
Do not be angry with me if I tell you the truth.
– Socrates
Prefer knowledge to wealth, for the one is transitory, the other perpetual.
– Socrates
To find yourself, think for yourself.
– Socrates
Do not go through life like leaf blown from here to there believing whatever you are told.
– Socrates
All things in moderation, including moderation.
– Socrates
The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world, is to be in reality what we would appear to be, all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice and experience of them.
– Socrates
Smart people learn from everything and everyone, average people from their experiences, stupid people already have all the answers.
– Socrates
When our feet hurt, we hurt all over.
– Socrates
I know you won’t believe me, but the highest form of Human Excellence is to question oneself and others.
– Socrates
It has been shown that to injure anyone is never just anywhere.
– Socrates
Fear of women love more than hate the man.
– Socrates
Fame is the perfume of heroic deeds.
– Socrates
If what you want to tell me is neither True nor Good nor even Useful, why tell it to me at all.
– Socrates
One who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice.
– Socrates
All of the wisdom of this world is but a tiny raft upon which we must set sail when we leave this earth. If only there was a firmer foundation upon which to sail, perhaps some divine word.
– Socrates
Socrates Quotes About Life
Trust not a woman when she weeps, for it is her nature to weep when she wants her will.
– Socrates
Only the extremely ignorant or the extremely intelligent can resist change.
– Socrates
Beware the barrenness of a busy life.
– Socrates
Remember, no human condition is ever permanent. Then you will not be overjoyed in good fortune nor too scornful in misfortune.
– Socrates
The heart of the person before you is a mirror. See there your own form.
– Socrates
The misuse of language induces evil in the soul.
– Socrates
Malice drinketh up the greater part of its own poison.
– Socrates
Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.
– Socrates
Virtue does not come from wealth, but wealth, and every other good thing which men have comes from virtue.
– Socrates
The right way to begin is to pay attention to the young, and make them just as good as possible.
– Socrates
The more I learn, the less I realize I know.
– Socrates
Four things belong to a judge: to hear courteously, to answer wisely, to consider soberly, and to decide impartially.
– Socrates
There is no solution; seek it lovingly.
– Socrates
Sometimes you have to let go to see if there was anything worth holding onto.
– Socrates
I only know one thing, and that is I know nothing.
– Socrates
Follow the argument wherever it leads.
– Socrates
Quotes of Socrates
In every person there is a sun. Just let them shine.
– Socrates
Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.
– Socrates
I pray Thee, O God, that I may be beautiful within.
– Socrates
Beauty comes first. Victory is secondary. What matters is joy.
– Socrates
Related: Quotes about inner beauty
Death offers mankind a full view of truth.
– Socrates
In all of us, even in good men, there is a lawless wild-beast nature, which peers out in sleep.
– Socrates
Though flattery blossoms like friendship, yet there is a vast difference in the fruit.
– Socrates
Better to do a little well, then a great deal badly.
– Socrates
True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.
– Socrates
You will know that the divine is so great and of such a nature that it sees and hears everything at once, is present everywhere, and is concerned with everything.
– Socrates
I swear it upon Zeus an outstanding runner cannot be the equal of an average wrestler.
– Socrates
The perfect human being is all human beings put together, it is a collective, it is all of us together that make perfection.
– Socrates
The soul, like the body, accepts by practice whatever habit one wishes it to contact.
– Socrates
The really important thing is not to live, but to live well. And to live well meant, along with more enjoyable things in life, to live according to your principles.
– Socrates
Obscurity is dispelled by augmenting the light of discernment, not by attacking the darkness.
– Socrates
Our lives are but specks of dust falling through the fingers of time. Like sands of the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.
– Socrates
Philosophy Quotes Socrates
Are not all things which have opposites generated out of their opposites?
– Socrates
It is not living that matters, but living rightly.
– Socrates
There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.
– Socrates
See one promontory, one mountain, one sea, one river and see all.
– Socrates
Improve yourself by other men’s writings thus attaining effortlessly what they acquired through great difficulty.
– Socrates
I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled poets to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.
– Socrates
An honest man is always a child.
– Socrates
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.
– Socrates
There is no possession more valuable than a good and faithful friend.
– Socrates
Man’s life is like a drop of dew on a leaf.
– Socrates
What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?
– Socrates
I have good hope that there is something remaining for the dead.
– Socrates
Our purpose in founding the city was not to make any one class in it surpassingly happy, but to make the city as a whole as happy as possible.
– Socrates
Living or dead, to a good man there can come no evil.
– Socrates
Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.
– Socrates
I shall never fear or avoid things of which I do not know…
– Socrates
Socrates Sayings and Quotes
People learn more on their own rather than being force fed.
– Socrates
Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions, but those who kindly reprove thy faults.
– Socrates
Be of good hope in the face of death. Believe in this one truth for certain, that no evil can befall a good man either in life or death, and that his fate is not a matter of indifference to the gods.
– Socrates
The body cannot be cured without regard for the soul.
– Socrates
To be uncertain is to be uncomfortable, but to be certain is to be ridiculous.
– Socrates
The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.
– Socrates
No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.
– Socrates
Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers.
– Socrates
If you would seek health, look first to the spine.
– Socrates
The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms.
– Socrates
Silence is a profound melody, for those who can hear it above all the noise.
– Socrates
Some have courage in pleasures, and some in pains: some in desires, and some in fears, and some are cowards under the same conditions.
– Socrates
Related: 300+ Courage Quotes To Help You Face Fears And Overcome Adversity
Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior.
– Socrates
Happiness is unrepented pleasure.
– Socrates
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
– Socrates
It seems that God took away the minds of poets that they might better express His.
– Socrates
Inspirational Quotes by Socrates
The fewer our wants the more we resemble the Gods.
– Socrates
The greatest blessing granted to mankind come by way of madness, which is a divine gift.
– Socrates
In childhood be modest, in youth temperate, in adulthood just, and in old age prudent.
– Socrates
We cannot live better than in seeking to become better.
– Socrates
How can you wonder your travels do you no good, when you carry yourself around with you?
– Socrates
It is a disgrace to grow old through sheer carelessness before seeing what manner of man you may become by developing your bodily strength and beauty to their highest limit.
– Socrates
I am a fool, but I know I’m a fool and that makes me smarter than you.
– Socrates
It is better to suffer an injustice than to commit one.
– Socrates
There is no difference between knowledge and temperance; for he who knows what is good and embraces it, who knows what is bad and avoids it, is learned and temperate.
– Socrates
Fellow citizens, why do you burn and scrape every stone to gather wealth and take so little care of your children to whom you must one day relinquish all?
– Socrates
Creation is man’s immortality and brings him nearest to the gods.
– Socrates
Be as you wish to seem.
– Socrates
Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death.
– 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.
– Socrates
The best seasoning for food in hunger; for drink, thirst.
– Socrates
What a lot of things there are a man can do without.
– Socrates
Quotations by Socrates
Be the kind of person that you want people to think you are.
– Socrates
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, whether he is acting like a good or a bad man.
– Socrates
To move the world we must move ourselves.
– Socrates
I soon realized that poets do not compose their poems with knowledge, but by some inborn talent and by inspiration, like seers and prophets who also say many fine things without any understanding of what they say.
– Socrates
Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.
– Socrates
The unexamined life is not worth living.
– Socrates
If the whole world depends on today’s youth, I can’t see the world lasting another years.
– Socrates
Every action has its pleasures and its price.
– Socrates
Nobody knows anything, but I, knowing nothing, am the smartest man in the world.
– Socrates
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
– Socrates
How can you call a man free when his pleasures rule over him.
– Socrates
This sense of wonder is the mark of the philosopher. Philosophy indeed has no other origin.
– Socrates
How many things are there which I do not want.
– Socrates
Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.
– Socrates
I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm; then they might have an unlimited power for doing good.
– Socrates
When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.
– Socrates
Socrates Famous Quotes
One thing I know, that I know nothing. This is the source of my wisdom.
– Socrates
There is no learning without remembering.
– Socrates
True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing. And in knowing that you know nothing, that makes you the smartest of all.
– Socrates
Those who want the fewest things are nearest to the gods.
– Socrates
Talk in order that I may see you.
– Socrates
To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge. For a man who claims to have the knowledge, while actually knowing nothing, is less smarter than you, who claim to know nothing.
– Socrates
Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people.
– Socrates
Be slow to fall into friendship, but when you are in, continue firm and constant.
– Socrates
The life of which meaning one never ponders is not worth living.
– Socrates
Wisdom begins in wonder.
– Socrates
To use words and phrases in an easygoing manner without scrutinizing them too curiously is not in general a mark of ill-breeding. On the contrary, there is something low-bred in being too precise. But sometimes there is no help for it.
– Socrates
I prefer to be refuted than to refute, for it is a greater good for oneself to be freed from the greatest evil than to free another.
– Socrates
Pride divides the men, humility joins them.
– Socrates
You never know a line is crooked unless you have a straight one to put next to it.
– Socrates
The hour of departure has arrived and we go our ways; I to die, and you to live. Which is better? Only God knows.
– Socrates
He is the richest who is content with the least.
– Socrates
Philosophical Quotes by Socrates
When you want success as badly as you want the air, then you will get it. There is no other secret of success.
– Socrates
The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death.
– Socrates
I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think.
– Socrates
If you want to be wrong then follow the masses.
– Socrates
Be true to thine own self.
– Socrates
He is a man of courage who does not run away, but remains at his post and fights against the enemy.
– Socrates
The hardest task needs the lightest hand or else its completion will not lead to freedom but to a tyranny much worse than the one it replaces.
– Socrates
Are you not ashamed of your eagerness to possess as much wealth, reputation, and honors as possible, while you do not care for nor give thought to wisdom or truth, or the best possible state of your soul?
– Socrates
The end of life is to be like unto God; and the soul following God, will be like unto Him; He being the beginning, middle, and end of all things.
– Socrates
Wisest is he who knows he knows not.
– Socrates
Do it because it’s in your heart. Not because you want something in return. Employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.
– Socrates
Anybody can be a hellene, by his heart, his mind, his spirit…
– Socrates
Sometimes you put walls up not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to break them down.
– Socrates
Beloved Pan and all ye other gods who haunt this place, give me beauty in the inward soul; and may the outward and the inward man be one.
– Socrates
Knowledge is our ultimate good.
– Socrates
There is a doctrine whispered in secret that a man is a prisoner who has no right to open the door and run away; this is a great mystery which I do not quite understand.
– Socrates
Socrates Quotations
The comic and the tragic lie inseparably close, like light and shadow.
– Socrates
What screws us up the most in life is the picture in our head of what it’s supposed to be.
– Socrates
Nothing is to be preferred before justice.
– Socrates
Why should we pay so much attention to what the majority thinks?
– Socrates
Thou shouldst eat to live; not live to eat.
– Socrates
Where there is reverence there is fear, but there is not reverence everywhere that there is fear, because fear presumably has a wider extension than reverence.
– Socrates
True perfection is a bold quest to seek. Only the willing and true of heart will seek the betterment of many.
– Socrates
Man must rise above the Earth – to the top of the atmosphere and beyond – for only thus will he fully understand the world in which he lives.
– Socrates
Understanding a question is half an answer.
– Socrates
He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.
– Socrates
Our prayers should be for blessings in general, for God knows best what is good for us.
– Socrates
I know that I am intelligent because I know that I know nothing.
– Socrates
The greater the power that deigns to serve you, the more honor it demands of you.
– Socrates
The easiest and noblest way is not to be crushing others, but to be improving yourselves.
– Socrates
Envy is the ulcer of the soul.
– Socrates
From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.
– Socrates
Words of Wisdom by Socrates
The understanding of mathematics is necessary for a sound grasp of ethics.
– Socrates
Neither I nor any other man should, on trial or in way, contrive to avoid death at any cost.
– Socrates
It is best and easiest not to discredit others but to prepare oneself to be as good as possible.
– Socrates
By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.
– Socrates
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