Socrates - Wikiquote

5/28/2018 Socrates - Wikiquote
Socrates
Socrates (Σωκράτης; c. 470 BC – 399 BC) was a classical Greek (Athenian)
philosopher credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy. Through
his portrayal in Plato's dialogues, Socrates has become renowned for his
contribution to the field of ethics, and it is this Platonic Socrates who lends his
name to the concepts of Socratic irony and the Socratic method, or elenchus.
The latter remains a commonly used tool in a wide range of discussions, and is
a type of pedagogy in which a series of questions is asked not only to draw
individual answers, but also to encourage fundamental insight into the issue at
hand.
The unexamined life is not worth

living.
Contents
Quotes
Plato
Gorgias
Phaedrus
Crito
Theaetetus
Republic
Apology
Phaedo
Last words
I set to do you—each one of you,
Xenophon individually and in private—what I
Plutarch hold to be the greatest possible
Diogenes Laertius service. I tried to persuade each one
of you to concern himself less with
Attributed
what he has than with what he is, so
Misattributed as to render himself as excellent
Quotes about Socrates and rational as possible.
See also
External links
Quotes
Socrates left no writings of his own, thus our awareness of his teachings comes primarily from a few ancient authors who
referred to him in their own works (see Socratic problem).
Plato
The words of Socrates, as quoted or portrayed in Plato's works, which are the most extensive source available for
our present knowledge about his ideas.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Socrates 1/22
I only wish that wisdom were the kind of thing that flowed … from the
vessel that was full to the one that was empty.
Plato, Symposium, 175d
Gorgias
It would be better for me... that multitudes of men should disagree with me
rather than that I, being one, should be out of harmony with myself.
Gorgias, 482c
Phaedrus
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 It would be better for me... that
excellence.
multitudes of men should disagree
Phaedrus with me rather than that I, being
one, should be out of harmony with
Oh dear Pan and all the other gods of this place, grant that I may be myself.
beautiful inside. Let all my external possessions be in friendly harmony
with what is within. May I consider the wise man rich. As for gold, let me
have as much as a moderate man could bear and carry with him.
Socrates' prayer, Phaedrus, 279
Crito
Has a philosopher like you failed to discover that our country is more to be
valued and higher and holier far than mother or father or any ancestor,
and more to be regarded in the eyes of the gods and of men of
understanding?
Crito
Theaetetus
Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.
Theaetetus, 155d
If the entire soul, then, follows
ἐγὼ δὲ οὐδὲν ἐπίσταμαι πλέον πλὴν βραχέος, ὅσον λόγον παρ᾽ ἑτέρου without rebellion the part which
σοφοῦ λαβεῖν καὶ ἀποδέξασθαι μετρίως. loves wisdom, the result is that in
general each part can carry out its
I myself know nothing, except just a little, enough to extract an own function—can be just, in other
argument from another man who is wise and to receive it fairly.
words—and in particular each is
Theaetetus, 161b
able to enjoy pleasures which are its
own, the best, and, as far as
possible, the truest.
Republic
Each of these private teachers who work for pay ... inculcates nothing else
than these opinions of the multitude which they opine when they are assembled and calls this knowledge wisdom.
Plato, Republic, 493a
Anyone who holds a true opinion without understanding is like a blind man on the right road.
Plato, Republic, 506c
The inexperienced in wisdom and virtue, ever occupied with feasting and
such, are carried downward, and there, as is fitting, they wander their
whole life long, neither ever looking upward to the truth above them nor
rising toward it, nor tasting pure and lasting pleasures. Like cattle, always
looking downward with their heads bent toward the ground and the
banquet tables, they feed, fatten, and fornicate. In order to increase their
possessions they kick and butt with horns and hoofs of steel and kill each
other, insatiable as they are.
Plato, Republic IX: 586a-b
If the entire soul, then, follows without rebellion the part which loves Anyone who holds a true opinion
wisdom, the result is that in general each part can carry out its own without understanding is like a blind
function—can be just, in other words—and in particular each is able to man on the right road.
enjoy pleasures which are its own, the best, and, as far as possible, the
truest. ... When one of the other parts takes control, there are two results:
it fails to discover its own proper pleasure, and it compels the other parts
to pursue a pleasure which is not their own, and not true.
Plato, Republic, T. Griffith, trans. (2000), 587a
Apology
Plato's account of the trial of Socrates. (Translated by Benjamin Jowett

unless otherwise specified.)
πρὸς ἐμαυτὸν δ᾽ οὖν ἀπιὼν ἐλογιζόμην ὅτι τούτου μὲν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐγὼ
σοφώτερός εἰμι· κινδυνεύει μὲν γὰρ ἡμῶν οὐδέτερος οὐδὲν καλὸν κἀγαθὸν
εἰδέναι, ἀλλ᾽ οὗτος μὲν οἴεταί τι εἰδέναι οὐκ εἰδώς, ἐγὼ δέ, ὥσπερ οὖν οὐκ
οἶδα, οὐδὲ οἴομαι· ἔοικα γοῦν τούτου γε σμικρῷ τινι αὐτῷ τούτῳ
σοφώτερος εἶναι, ὅτι ἃ μὴ οἶδα οὐδὲ οἴομαι εἰδέναι.
When I left him, I reasoned thus with myself: I am wiser than this man,
for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he
fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, Each of these private teachers who
as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do. In this trifling work for pay ... inculcates nothing
particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I else than these opinions of the
know what I do not know. multitude which they opine when
21d they are assembled and calls this
knowledge wisdom.
I realized that it was not by wisdom that poets write their poetry, but by a
kind of nature or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets; for
these also say many beautiful things, but do not know anything of what
they say.
22c
I went to the artisans, for I was conscious that I knew nothing at all, as I
may say, and I was sure that they knew many fine things of which I was
ignorant, and in this they certainly were wiser than I was. But I observed
that even the good artisans fell into the same error as the poets; because
they were good workmen they thought they knew all sorts of high matters,
and this defect in them overshadowed their wisdom — therefore I asked
myself on behalf of the oracle, whether I would like to be as I was, neither
having their knowledge nor their ignorance, or like them in both; and I I only wish that wisdom were the
made answer to myself and the oracle that I was better off as I was.
kind of thing that flowed … from the
22d–e vessel that was full to the one that
was empty.
I am called wise, for my hearers always imagine that I myself possess
wisdom which I find wanting in others: but the truth is, O men of Athens,
that God only is wise; and in this oracle he means to say that the wisdom
of men is little or nothing... as if he said, He, O men, is the wisest, who like
Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing. And so I go on
my way, obedient to the god, and make inquisition into anyone, whether
citizen or stranger, who appears to be wise; and if he is not wise, then in
vindication of the oracle I show him that he is not wise; and this
occupation quite absorbs me, and I have no time to give either to any
public matter of interest or to any concern of my own, but I am in utter
poverty by reason of my devotion to the god.
23a-c
If somebody asks them, Why, what evil does he practice or teach? they do
not know, and cannot tell; but in order that they do not appear to be at a
loss, they repeat the ready-made charges which are used against all
philosophers about teaching things up in the clouds and under the earth,
and having no gods, and making the worse appear the better cause; for
they do not like to confess that their pretense of knowledge has been
detected — which is the truth...
23d The inexperienced in wisdom and

virtue, ever occupied with feasting
Now answer me this. Do you think that the same holds of horses? Do
and such, are carried downward,
people in general improve them, whereas one particular person corrupts
them or makes them worse? Or is it wholly the opposite: one particular and there, as is fitting, they wander
person - or the very few who are horse trainers - is able to improve them, their whole life long, neither ever
whereas the majority of people, if they have to do with horses and make looking upward to the truth above
use of them, make them worse? Isn't that true, Meletus, both of horses them nor rising toward it, nor tasting
and of all other animals? Of course it is, whether you and Anytus say so or
pure and lasting pleasures. Like
not. Indeed, our young people are surely in a very happy situation if only
one person corrupts them, whereas all the rest benefit them. cattle, always looking downward
with their heads bent toward the
25b ground and the banquet tables, they
feed, fatten, and fornicate. In order
Either I do not corrupt them, or I corrupt them unintentionally, so that on
either view of the case you lie. If my offense is unintentional, the law has to increase their possessions they
no cognizance of unintentional offenses; you ought to have taken me kick and butt with horns and hoofs
privately, and warned and admonished me; for if I had been better of steel and kill each other,
advised, I should have left off doing what I only did unintentionally — no insatiable as they are.
doubt I should; whereas you hated to converse with me or teach me, but
you indicted me in this court, which is the place not of instruction, but of
punishment.
26a
I have said enough in answer to the charge of Meletus: any elaborate defense is unnecessary; but as I was saying
before, I certainly have many enemies, and this is what will be my destruction if I am destroyed; of that I am certain;
not Meletus, nor yet Anytus, but the envy and detraction of the world, which has been the death of many a good men,
and will probably be the death of many more; there is no danger of my being the last of them.
28a
Someone will say: And are you not ashamed, Socrates, of a course of life which is likely to bring you to an untimely
end? To him I may fairly answer: There you are mistaken: a man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the
chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong — acting the
part of a good man or a bad. ...For wherever a man's place is, whether the place he has chosen or that where he has
been placed by a commander. there he ought to remain in the hour of danger; he should not think of death or of
anything, but of disgrace.
28b–d
If, I say now, when, as I conceive and imagine, God orders me to fulfill the philosopher's mission of searching into
myself and other men, I were to desert my post through fear of death, or any other fear; that would indeed be strange,
and I might justly be arraigned in court for denying the existence of the gods... then I would be fancying that I was
wise when I was not wise. For this fear of death is indeed the pretense of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being the
appearance of knowing the unknown; since no one knows whether death, which they in their fear apprehend to be the
greatest evil, may not be the greatest good. ...this is the point in which, as
I think, I am superior to men in general, and in which I might perhaps
fancy myself wiser than other men — that whereas I know but little of the
world below, I do not suppose that I know: but I do know that injustice and
disobedience to a better, whether God or man, is evil and dishonorable,
and I will never fear or avoid a possible good rather than a certain evil.
29a–b
Alternate translation: "To fear death, is nothing else but to believe
ourselves to be wise, when we are not; and to fancy that we know
what we do not know. In effect, no body knows death; no body can tell,
but it may be the greatest benefit of mankind; and yet men are afraid of
it, as if they knew certainly that it were the greatest of evils."
And how is not this the most reprehensible ignorance, to think that one
knows what one does not know? But I, O Athenians! in this, perhaps, differ
from most men; and if I should say that I am in any thing wiser than
another, it would be in this, that not having a competent knowledge of the
things in Hades, I also think that I have not such knowledge.
29b [alternate translation]
I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy, exhorting False words are not only evil in
anyone whom I meet after my manner, and convincing him, saying: O my
friend, why do you who are a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city themselves, but they infect the soul
of Athens, care so much about laying up the greatest amount of money with evil.
and honor and reputation, and so little about wisdom and truth and the
greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all?
Are you not ashamed of this? And if the person with whom I am arguing says: Yes, but I do care: I do not depart or let
him go at once; I interrogate and examine and cross-examine him, and if I think that he has no virtue, but only says
that he has, I reproach him with overvaluing the greater, and undervaluing the less. ...For this is the command of God,
as I would have you know...
29d–30a
I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your persons or your
properties, but and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul. I tell you that virtue is not given by
money, but that from virtue comes money and every other good of man, public as well as private. This is my teaching,
and if this is the doctrine which corrupts the youth, I am a mischievous person.
30a–b
If you kill such a one as I am, you will injure yourselves more than you will injure me. Meletus and Anytus will not
injure me: they cannot; for it is not in the nature of things that a bad man should injure one better than himself. I do
not deny that he may, perhaps, kill him, or drive him into exile, or deprive him of civil rights; and he may imagine, and
others may imagine, that he is doing him a great injury: but in that I do not agree with him; for the evil of doing what
Anytus is doing — of unjustly taking away another man's life — is greater far.
30c–d
So now, Athenian men, more than on my own behalf must I defend myself, as some may think, but on your behalf, so
that you may not make a mistake concerning the gift of god by condemning me. For if you kill me, you will not easily
find another such person at all, even if to say in a ludicrous way, attached on the city by the god, like on a large and
well-bred horse, by its size and laziness both needing arousing by some gadfly; in this way the god seems to have
fastened me on the city, some such one who arousing and persuading and reproaching each one of you I do not stop
the whole day settling down all over. Thus such another will not easily come to you, men, but if you believe me, you
will spare me; but perhaps you might possibly be offended, like the sleeping who are awakened, striking me, believing
Anytus, you might easily kill, then the rest of your lives you might continue sleeping, unless the god caring for you
should send you another.
30e
If I had engaged in politics, I should have perished long ago and done no good to either you or to myself. ...for the
truth is that no man who goes to war with you or any other multitude, honestly struggling against the commission of
unrighteouosness and wrong in the State, will save his life; he who will really fight for right, if he would live even for a
little while, must have a private station and not a public one.
31e
I have had no regular disciples: but if anyone likes to come and hear me while I am pursuing my mission, whether he
be young or old, he may freely come. Nor do I converse with those who pay only, and not with those who do not pay;
but anyone, whether he be rich or poor, may ask and answer me and listen to my words; and whether he turns out to
be a bad man or a good one, that cannot be justly laid to my charge, as I never taught him anything. And if anyone
says that he has ever learned or heard anything from me in private which all the world has not heard, I should like you
to know that he is speaking an untruth.
33a–b
I did not go where I could do no good to you or to myself; but where I could do the greatest good privately to everyone
of you, thither I went, and sought to persuade every man among you that he must look to himself, and seek virtue and
wisdom before he looks to his private interests, and look to the State before he looks to the interests of the State; and
that this should be the order which he observes in all his actions. What shall be done to such a one? Doubtless some
good thing...
36c–d
I set to do you—each one of you, individually and in private—what I hold to be the greatest possible service. I tried to
persuade each one of you to concern himself less with what he has than with what he is, so as to render himself as
excellent and rational as possible.
36c6, as cited in Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life (1995), p. 90
Someone will say: Yes, Socrates, but cannot you hold your tongue, and then you may go into a foreign city, and no
one will interfere with you? Now I have great difficulty in making you understand my answer to this. For if I tell you that
this would be a disobedience to a divine command, and therefore that I cannot hold my tongue, you will not believe
that I am serious; and if I say that the greatest good of a man is daily to converse about virtue, and all that concerning
which you hear me examining myself and others, and that the life which is unexamined is not worth living — that you
are still less likely to believe.
37e–38a
ὁ δὲ ἀνεξέταστος βίος οὐ βιωτὸς ἀνθρώπῳ (ho de anexetastos bios ou biôtos anthrôpôi)
The unexamined life is not worth living for a human being.

38a
Variant translations:
(More closely) The unexamining life is not worth living for a human being
The life which is unexamined is not worth living.
An unexamined life is not worth living.
The unexamined life is not the life for man.
Life without enquiry is not worth living for a man.
I would rather die having spoken in my manner, than speak in your manner and live. For neither in war nor yet in law
ought any man use every way of escaping death. For often in battle there is no doubt that if a man will throw away his
arms, and fall on his knees before his pursuers, he may escape death, if a man is willing to say or do anything. The
difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs deeper than death.
38e–39a
And I prophesy to you who are my murderers, that immediately after my death punishment far heavier than you have
inflicted on me will surely await you. Me you have killed because you wanted to escape the accuser, and not to give
an account of your lives. But that will not be as you suppose: far otherwise. For I say that there will be more accusers
of you than there are now; accusers whom hitherto I have restrained: and as they are younger they will be more
severe with you, and you will be more offended at them. For if you think that by killing men you can avoid the accuser
censoring your lives, you are mistaken; that is not a way of escape which is either possible or honorable; the easiest
and the noblest way is not to be crushing others, but to be improving yourselves.
39c–d
We shall see that there is great reason to hope that death is a good, for one of two things: either death is a state of
nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and a migration of the soul from this world
to another. Now if you suppose there is no consciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of him who is undisturbed even
by the site of dreams, death will be an unspeakable gain. For if a person were to select the night in which his sleep
was undisturbed even by dreams, and were to compare with this the other days and nights of his life, and then were
to tell us how many days and nights he had passed in the course of his life better and more pleasantly than this one, I
think that any man, I will not say a private man, but even the great king, will not find many such days or nights, when
compared with the others. Now, if death is like this, I say that to die is gain; for eternity is then only a single night. But
if death is the journey to another place, and there, as men say, all the dead are, what good, O friends and judges, can
be greater than this? ...Above all, I shall be able to continue my search into true and false knowledge; as in this world,
so also in that; I shall find out who is wise, and who pretends to be wise, and is not. ...What infinite delight would there
be in conversing with them and asking them questions! For in that world they would not put a man to death for this;
certainly not. For besides being happier in that world than in this, they will be immortal, if what is said is true.
40c–41c
Wherefore, O judges, be of good cheer about death, and know that this is of a truth — that no evil can happen to a
good man, either in life or after death. ...For which reason also, I am not angry with my accusers, or my condemners;
they have done me no harm, although neither of them meant to do me any good; and for this I may gently blame
them.
41c–e
When my sons are grown up, I would ask you, O my friends, to punish them; and I would have you to trouble them, as
I have troubled you, if they seem to care about riches, or anything, more than about virtue; or if they pretend to be
something when they are really nothing — then reprove them, as I have reproved you, for not caring about that for
which they ought to care, and thinking that they are something when they are really nothing. And if you do this, I and
my sons will have received justice at your hands.
41e–42a
The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways — I to die and you
to live. Which is the better, only God knows.
42a
Phaedo
Plato's account of Socrates' death.

The hour of departure has arrived,
Note: Generally, the early works of Plato are considered to be close to the and we go our ways — I to die and
spirit of Socrates, whereas the later works, including Phaedo, may possibly you to live. Which is the better, only
be products of Plato's elaborations. God knows.
How singular is the thing called pleasure, and how curiously related to
pain, which might be thought to be the opposite of it; for they never come to a man together, and yet he who pursues
either of them is generally compelled to take the other. They are two, and yet they grow together out of one head or
stem.
In the course of my life I have often had intimations in dreams "that I should make music." The same dream came to
me sometimes in one form, and sometimes in another, but always saying the same or nearly the same words: Make
and cultivate music, said the dream. And hitherto I imagined that this was only intended to exhort and encourage me
in the study of philosophy, which has always been the pursuit of my life, and is the noblest and best of music.
[Why is suicide held not to be right?] There is a doctrine uttered in secret that a man is a prisoner who has no right to
open the door to his prison and run away; this is a great mystery which I do not understand. Yet I too, believe that the
gods are our guardians, and that we are a possession of theirs. ...And if one of your possessions, an ox or an ass, for
example took the liberty of putting himself out of the way when you had given no intimation of your wish that he
should die, would you not be angry with him, and would you not punish him if you could? ...Then there may be reason
in saying that a man should wait, and not take his own life until God summons him, as he is now summoning me.
I am quite ready, Simmias and Cebes, that I ought to be grieved at death, if I were not persuaded that I am going to
other gods who are wise and good and to men departed who are better than those whom I leave behind; and
therefore I do not grieve as I might have done, for I have good hope that there is yet something remaining for the
dead, and, as has been said of old, some far better thing for the good than for the evil.
The true disciple of philosophy is likely to be misunderstood by other men; they do not perceive that he is ever
pursuing death and dying; and if this is true, why, having had the desire of death all his life long, should he repine at
that which he has always been pursuing and desiring?
When does the soul obtain truth?—for in attempting to consider anything in company with the body she is obviously
deceived. ...Then must not existence be revealed to her in thought, if at all? ...And thought is best when the mind is
gathered into herself and none of these things trouble her—neither sounds nor sights nor pain nor any pleasure—
when she has as little as possible to do with the body, and has no bodily sense or feeling, but is aspiring after being?
...And in this the philosopher dishonors the body; his soul runs away from the body and desires to be alone and by
herself?
The body is a source of endless trouble to us by reason of the mere requirement of food; and is also liable to
diseases which overtake and impede us in the search after truth: and by filling us so full of loves, and lusts, and fears,
and fancies, and idols, and every sort of folly, prevents our ever having, as people say, so much as a thought.
Whence come wars, and fighting, and factions? whence but from the body and the lusts of the body? For wars are
occasioned by the love of money, and money has to be acquired for the sake and in service of the body; and in
consequence of all these things, the time which ought to be given to philosophy is lost.
Either knowledge is not to be attained at all, or if at all, after death. For then, and not til then, the soul will be in herself
alone and without the body.
In this present life, I reckon that we make the nearest approach to knowledge when we have the least possible
concern or interest in the body, and are not saturated with the bodily nature, but remain pure until the hour when God
himself is pleased to release us. And then the foolishness of the body will be cleared away and we shall be pure and
hold converse with othe pure souls, and know of ourselves the clear light everywhere; and this is surely the light of
truth. For no impure thing is allowed to approach the pure. These are the sort of words, Simmias, which the true
lovers of wisdom cannot help saying to one another, and thinking.
And now that the hour of departure is appointed to me, this is the hope with which I depart, and not I only, but every
man that believes that he has his mind purified.
And will he who is a true lover of wisdom, and is persuaded in like manner that only in the world below can he worthily
enjoy her, still repine at death? Will he not depart with joy? Surely he will, my friend, if he be a true philosopher. ...And
if this be true, he would be very absurd, ...if he were to fear death.
And when you see a man who is repining at the approach of death, is not his reluctance a sufficient proof that he is
not a lover of wisdom, but a lover of the body, and probably at the same time a lover of either money or power, or
both?
There is a virtue, Simmias, which is named courage. Is not that a special attribute of the philosopher? ...Again, there
is temperance. Is not the calm, and control, and disdain of the passions which even the many call temperance, a
quality belonging only to those who despise the body and live in philosophy?
...do not courageous men endure death because they are afraid of yet greater evils? ...Then all but philosophers are
courageous only from fear, and because they are afraid; and yet that a man should be courageous from fear, and
because he is a coward, is surely a strange thing.
And are not the temperate exactly in the same case? They are temperate because they are intemperate—which may
seem to be a contradiction, but is nevertheless the sort of thing which happens with this foolish temperance. For there
are pleasures which they must have, and are afraid of losing; and therefore they abstain from one class of pleasures
because they are overcome by another: and whereas intemperance is defined as "being under the domination of
pleasure," they overcome only because they are overcome by pleasure.
The exchange of one fear or pleasure or pain for another fear or pleasure or pain, which are measured like coins, the
greater with the less, is not the exchange of virtue. O, my dear Simmias, is there not one true coin, for which all things
ought to exchange?—and that is wisdom; and only in exchange for this, and in company with this, is anything truly
bought or sold, whether courage or temperance or justice. ...in the true exchange, there is a purging away of all these
things, and temperance, and justice, and courage, and wisdom herself are a purgation of them.
I conceive that the founders of the mysteries had a real meaning and were not mere triflers when they intimated in a
figure long ago that he who passes unsanctified and uninitiated into the world below will live in a slough, but that he
who arrives there after initiation and purification will dwell with the gods. For "many," as they say in the mysteries, "are
the thyrsus bearers, but few are the mystics,"—meaning, as I interpret the words, the true philosophers.
If generation were in a straight line only, and there were no compensation or circle in nature, no turn or return into one
another, then you know that all things would at last have the same form and pass into the same state, and there
would be no more generation of them.
I am confident in the belief that there truly is such a thing as living again, and that the living spring from the dead, and
that the souls of the dead are in existence, and that the good souls have a better portion than the evil.
If the knowledge which we acquired before birth was lost to us at birth, and afterwords by the use of the senses we
recovered that which we previously knew, will not that which we call learning be a process of recovering our
knowledge, and may not this be rightly termed recollection by us? ...Then, Simmias, our souls must have existed
before they were in the form of man—without bodies, and must have had intelligence.
We admitted that everything living is born of the dead. For if the soul existed before birth, and in coming to life and
being born can be born only from death and dying, must she not after death continue to exist, since she has to be
born again?
Now the compound or composite may be supposed to be naturally capable of being dissolved in like manner as being
compounded; but that which is uncompounded, and that only, must be, if anything is, indissoluble. ...And the
uncompounded may be assumed to be the same and unchanging, where the compound is always changing and
never the same? ...Is that idea or essence, which in the dialectical process we define as essence of true existence—
whether essence of equality, beauty, or anything else: are these essences, I say, liable at times to some degree of
change? or are they each of them always what they are, having the same simple, self-existent and unchanging forms,
and not admitting of variation at all, or in any way, or at any time?
Suppose that there are two sorts of existences, one seen, and the other unseen. ...The seen is the changing, and the
unseen is the unchanging. ...And further, is not one part of us body, and the rest of us soul? ...Then the soul is more
like to the unseen, and the body to the seen? ...the soul is then dragged by the body into the region of the
changeable, and wanders and is confused; the world spins round her, and she is like a drunkard when under their
influence?
But when returning into herself she [the soul] reflects; then she passes into the realm of purity, and eternity, and
immortality, and unchangeableness, which are her kindred, and with them she ever lives, when she is by herself and
is not let or hindered; then she ceases from her erring ways, and being in communion with the unchanging is
unchanging. And this state of the soul is called wisdom.
The soul is in the very likeness of the divine, and immortal, and intelligible, and uniform, and indissoluble, and
unchangeable; and the body is in the very likeness of the human, and mortal, and unintelligible, and multiform, and
dissoluble, and changeable.
But the soul which has been polluted, and is impure at the time of her departure, and is the companion and servant of
the body always, and is in love with and fascinated by the body and by the desires and pleasures of the body, until
she is led to believe that the truth exists only in bodily form, which a man may touch and see and taste and use for the
purposes of his lusts—the soul, I mean, accustomed to hate and fear and avoid the intellectual principle, which to the
bodily eye is dark and invisible, and can be attained only by philosophy—do you suppose that such a soul as this will
depart pure and unalloyed?
He who is a philosopher or lover of learning, and is entirely pure at departing, is alone permitted to reach the gods.
And this is the reason, Simmias and Cebes, why the true votaries of philosophy abstain from all fleshly lusts, and
endure and refuse to give themselves up to them—not because they fear poverty or ruin of their families, like the
lovers of money, and the world in general; nor like the lovers of power and honor, because they dread the dishonor or
disgrace of evil deeds.
They who have a care of their souls, and do not merely live in the fashions of the body, say farewell to all this; they
will not walk in the ways of the blind: and when philosophy offers them purification and release from evil, they feel that
they ought not resist her influence, and to her they incline, and whither she leads they follow her.
When the feeling of pleasure or pain in the soul is most intense, all of us naturally suppose that the object of this
intense feeling is then plainest and truest; but this is not the case. ...because each pleasure and pain is a sort of nail
which nails and rivets the soul to the body, and engrosses her and makes her believe that to be true which the body
affirms to be true; and from agreeing with the body and having the same delights she is obliged to have the same
habits and ways, and is not likely ever to be pure at her departure to the world below, but is always saturated with the
body; so that she soon [after death] sinks into another body and there germinates and grows, and has therefore no
part in the communion of the divine and pure and simple.
And this, Cebes, is the reason why the true lovers of knowledge are temperate and brave; and not for the reason that
the world gives. For not in that way does the soul of a philosopher reason. ...Never fear, Simmias and Cebes, that a
soul which has been thus nurtured and has had these pursuits, will at her departure from the body be scattered and
blown away by the winds and be nowhere and nothing.
Will you not allow that I have as much of the spirit of prophecy in me as the swans? For they, when they perceive that
they must die, having sung all their life long, do then sing more than ever, rejoicing in the thought that they are about
to go away to the god whose ministers they are.
As there are misanthropists, or haters of men, there are also misologists or haters of ideas, and both spring from the
same cause, which is ignorance of the world. Misanthropy arises from too great confidence of inexperience; you trust
a man and think him altogether true and good and faithful, and then in a little while he turns out to be false and
knavish; and then another and another, and when this has happened several times to a man, especially within the
circle of his most trusted friends, as he deems them, and he has often quarreled with them, he at last hates all men,
and believes that no one has any good in him at all. ...The reason is that a man, having to deal with other men, has
no knowledge of them; for if he had knowledge he would have known the true state of the case, that few are the good
and few the evil, and that the great majority are in the interval between them.
Nothing is more uncommon than a very large or a very small man; and this applies generally to all extremes, whether
of great and small, or swift and slow, or fair and foul, or black and white; and whether the instances you select be man
or dogs or anything else, few are the extremes,but many are in the mean between them.
When a simple man who has no skill in dialectics believes an argument to be true which he afterwards imagines to be
false, whether really false or not, and then another and another, he no longer has any faith left, and great disputers,
as you know, come to think, at last that they have grown to be the wisest of mankind; for they alone perceive the utter
unsoundness and instability of all arguments, or, indeed, of all things, which like the currents in the Euripus, are going
up and down in never-ceasing ebb and flow.
Let us... be careful of admitting into our souls the notion that there is no truth or health or soundness in any
arguments at all; but let us rather say that there is as yet no health in us, and that we must quit ourselves like men
and do our best to gain health—you and all other men with a view to the whole of your future life, and I myself with a
view to death.
The soul, being a harmony, can never utter a note at variance with the tensions and relaxations and vibrations and
other affections of the strings out of which she is composed; she can only follow, she cannot lead them? ...And yet do
we not now discover the soul to be doing the exact opposite—leading the elements of which she is believed to be
composed; almost always opposing and coercing them in all sorts of ways throughout life... threatening and
reprimanding the desires, passions, fears, as if talking to a thing which is not herself...
You want to have proven to you that the soul is imperishable and immortal, and you think that the philosopher who is
confident in death has but a vain and foolish confidence, if he thinks that he will fare better than one who has led
another sort of life, in the world below, unless he can prove this; and you say that the strength and divinity of the soul,
and of her existence prior to our becoming men, does not necessarily imply her immortality. ...For any man, who is not
devoid of natural feeling, has reason to fear, if he has no knowledge or proof of the soul's immortality. That is what I
suppose you to say, Cebes, which I designedly repeat, in order that nothing may escape us...
When I was young, Cebes, I had a prodigious desire to know the department of philosophy which is called Natural
Science; this appeared to me to have lofty aims, as being the science which has to do with the causes of things, and
which teaches why a thing is, and is created and destroyed; and I always agitated myself with the consideration of
such questions as these... I went on to examine the decay of them, and then to the study of the heaven and earth,
and at last I concluded that I was wholly incapable of these inquiries... There was a time when I thought that I
understood the meaning of greater and less pretty well... that ten is more than eight, and that two cubits are more
than one, because two is twice one. I should be far from imagining... that I knew the cause of any of them, indeed I
should, for I cannot satisfy myself that when one is added to one, the one to which the addition is made becomes
two... nor can I understand how the division of one is the way to make two; for then a different cause would produce
the same effect.
Then I heard someone who had a book of Anaxagoras, as he said, out of which he read that the mind was the
disposer and cause of all... and I said to myself: If mind is the disposer, mind will dispose all for the best, and put each
particular in the best place; and I argued that if anyone desired to find out the cause of the generation or destruction
of anything, he must find out what state of being or suffering or doing was best for that thing, and therefore a man had
only consider the best for himself and others, and then he would also know the worse, for that the same science
comprised both.
And I rejoiced to think that I has found in Anaxagoras a teacher of the causes of existence such as I desired, and I
imagined that he would tell me first whether the earth is flat or round; and then he would further explain that this
position was the best, and I should be satisfied... and not want any other sort of cause. And I thought that I would then
go and ask him about the sun and moon and stars, and he would explain to me their comparative swiftness, and their
returnings and various states, and how their several affections, active and passive, were all for the best. For I could
not imagine that when he spoke of mind as the disposer of them, he would give any other account of their being as
they are, except that this was best; and I thought when he had explained to me in detail the cause of each and the
cause of all, he would go on to explain to me what was best for me and what was best for all. ...I seized the books
and read them as fast as I could in my eagerness to know the better and the worse.
How grievously I was disappointed! ...I found my philosopher altogether forsaking mind and any other principle of
order, but having recourse to air, and ether, and water, and other eccentricities. I might compare him to a person that
began by maintaining generally that mind is the cause of the actions of Socrates, but who, when endeavored to
explain the causes of my several actions in detail, went on to show that I sit here because my body is made up of
bones and muscles; and the bones he would say, are hard and have ligaments which divide them, and the muscles
are elastic, and they cover the bones, which also have a covering or environment of flesh and skin which contains
them; and as the bones are lifted at their joints by the contraction or relaxation of the muscles, I am able to bend my
limbs, and this is why I an sitting here in a curved posture... and he would have a similar explanation of my talking to
you, which he would attribute to sound, and air, and hearing, and he would assign ten thousand other causes of the
same sort, forgetting to mention the true cause, which is that Athenians have thought fit to condemn me, and
accordingly I have thought it better and more right to remain here and undergo my sentence; for I am inclined to think
that these muscles and bones of mine would have gone off to Megara or Boeotia... if they had been guided only by
their idea of what was best, and if I had not chosen as the better and nobler part... to undergo any punishment that
the State inflicts.
It may be said, indeed, that without bones and muscles and the other parts of the body I cannot execute my
purposes. But to say that I do as I do because of them, and that this is the way in which the mind acts, and not from
the choice of the best, is a very careless and idle mode of speaking. I wonder that they cannot distinguish the cause
from the condition, which the many, feeling about in the dark, are always mistaking and misnaming.
And thus one man makes a vortex all round and steadies the earth by the heaven; another gives the air as support for
the earth, which is sort of a broad trough. Any power which in disposing them as they are disposes them for the best
never enters into their minds, not do they imagine that there is any superhuman strength in that; they rather expect to
find another Atlas of the world who is stronger and more everlasting and more containing than the good is, and are
clearly of the opinion that the obligatory and containing power of the good is as nothing; and yet this is the principle
which I would fain learn if anyone would teach me. But as I have failed either to discover myself or to learn of anyone
else, the nature of the best, I will exhibit to you, if you like, what I have found to be the second best mode of inquiring
into the cause.
I thought that as I had failed in the contemplation of true existence, I ought to be careful that I did not lose the eye of
my soul; as people may injure their bodily eye by observing and gazing on the sun during an eclipse, unless they take
the precaution of looking at the image reflected in the water, or in some similar medium. ...I was afraid that my soul
might be blinded altogether if I looked at things with my eyes or tried by the help of my senses to apprehend them.
And I thought that I had better had recourse to ideas, and seek in them truth in existence. I dare to say that the simile
is not perfect—for I am far from admitting that he who contemplates existence through the medium of ideas, sees
them only "through a glass darkly," any more than he who sees them in their working and effects.
This was the method which I adopted: I first assumed some principle which I judged to be the strongest, and then I
affirmed as true whatever seemed to agree with this, whether relating to the cause or to anything else; and that which
disagreed I regarded as untrue. ...I want to show you the nature of that cause which has occupied my thoughts, and I
shall have to go back to those familiar words which are in the mouth of everyone, and first of all assume that there is
an absolute beauty and goodness and greatness, and the like; grant me this, and I hope to be able to show you the
nature of the cause, and to prove the immortality of the soul.
If there is anything beautiful other than absolute beauty, that can only be beautiful as far as it partakes of absolute
beauty—and this I should say of everything. ...by beauty all things become beautiful. ...by greatness only great things
become great and greater and greater, and by smallness the less becomes less.
You would say... inexperienced as I am, and ready to start, as the proverb says, at my own shadow, I cannot afford to
give up the sure ground of principle. ...and when you are further required to give an explanation of this principle, you
would go on to assume a higher principle, and the best of the higher ones, until you found a resting place; but you
would not refuse the principle and consequences in your reasoning like the Eristics—at least if you wanted to discover
real existence.
Not that this confusion signifies to them who never care to think about the matter at all, for they have the wit to be well
pleased with themselves, however great the turmoil of their ideas. But you, if you are a philosopher, will, I believe, do
as I say.
Absolute greatness will never be great and also small, but that greatness in us or in the concrete will never admit the
small or admit of even being exceeded; instead of this, one of two things will happen—either the greater will fly and
retire before the opposite, which is the less, or the advance of the less will cease to exist; but will not, if allowing or
admitting smallness, be changed by that...nor can any other opposite which remains the same ever be or become its
own opposite, but either passes away or perishes in the change.
[One of the company... said: ...is not this the direct contrary of what we admitted before—that out of the greater came
the less and out of the less the greater, and that opposites are simply generated from opposites; whereas now this
seems to be utterly denied.] ...then we were speaking of opposites in the concrete, and now of the essential opposite
which, as is affirmed, neither in us nor in nature can ever be at variance with itself... these essetial opposites will
never, as we maintain, admit of generation into or out of one another.
What is that the inherence of which, will render the body alive? [The soul.] ...Then whatever the soul possesses, to
that she comes bearing life? ...And is there an opposite to life? [Death.] Then the soul, as she has been
acknowledged, will never receive the opposite of what she brings. ...And what do we call the principle which does not
admit of death? [The immortal.] And does the soul admit of death? [No.] Then the soul is immortal? [Yes.]
If the immortal is also imperishable, the soul when attacked by death cannot perish; for the preceding argument
shows that the soul will not admit of death, or even be dead, any more than three or the odd number will admit of the
even...
If death had only been the end of all, the wicked would have had a good bargain in dying, for they would have been
happily quit not only of their body, but of their own evil together with their souls. But now, as the soul plainly appears
to be immortal, there is no release or salvation from evil except the attainment of the highest virtue and wisdom. For
the soul when on her progress to the world below takes nothing with her but nurture and education...
For after death, as they say, the genius of each individual, to whom he belonged in life, leads him to a certain place in
which the dead are gathered together for judgment, whence they go into the world below, following the guide who is
appointed to conduct them from this world to the other; and when they have there received their due and remained
their time, another guide brings them back again after many revolutions of ages.
[In the world below...] The wise and orderly soul is conscious of her situation, and follows in the path; but the soul
which desires the body, and which... has long been fluttering about the lifeless frame and the world of sight, is after
many struggles and many sufferings hardly and with violence carried away by her attendant genius, and when she
arrives at the place where the other souls are gathered, if she be impure and have done impure deeds or have been
concerned in foul murders or other crimes... from that soul everyone flees and turns away; no one will be her
companion, no one her guide, but alone she wanders in extremity of evil until certain times are fulfilled...
If any man could arrive at the exterior limit, or take the wings of a bird and fly upward, like a fish who puts his head out
and sees the world, he would see a world beyond; and, if the nature of man could sustain this sight, he would
acknowledge that this was the place of the true heaven and the true light and the true stars. For this earth, and the
stones, and the entire region which surrounds us, are spoilt and corroded...
Upon the earth are animals and men, some in a middle region, others dwelling about the air as we dwell about the
sea; others in islands which the air flows round, near the continent; and in a word, the air is used by them as the
water and the sea are by us, and the ether is to them as the air is to us. Moreover, the temperament of their seasons
is such that they have no disease, and live much longer than we do, and have sight and hearing and smell, and all the
other senses, in far greater perfection, in the same degree that air is purer than water or the ether than air. Also they
have temples and sacred places in which the gods really dwell, and they hear their voices and receive their answers
and are conscious of them and hold converse with them, and they see the sun, moon, and stars as they really are,
and their other blessedness is of a piece with this.
[In the world below...] those who appear to have lived neither well not ill, go to the river Acheron, and mount such
conveyances as they can get, and are carried in them to the lake, and there they dwell and are purified of their evil
deeds, and suffer the penalty of the wrongs which they have done to others, and are absolved, and receive the
rewards of their good deeds according to their deserts. But those who appear to be incurable by reason of the
greatness of their crimes—who have committed many and terrible deeds of sacrilege, murders foul and violent, or the
like—such are hurled into Tartarus, which is their suitable destiny, and they never come out. Those again who have
committed crimes, which, although great, are not unpardonable—who in moment of anger, for example, have done
violence to a father or a mother, and have repented for the remainder of their lives, or who have taken the life of
another under like extenuating circumstances—these are plunged into Tartarus, the pains of which they are
compelled to undergo for a year, but at the end of the year the wave casts them forth—mere homicides by way of
Cocytus, patricides and matricides by Pyriphlegethon—and they are borne to the Acherusian Lake, and here they lift
up their voices and call upon the victims whom they have slain or wronged, to have pity on them, and to receive them,
and to let them come out of the river into the lake. And if they prevail, then they come forth and cease from their
troubles; but if not, they are carried back again into Tartarus and from thence into the rivers unceasingly, until they
obtain mercy from those whom they have wronged: for this is the sentence inflicted upon them by their judges.
Those also who are remarkable for having led holy lives are released from this earthly prison, and go to their pure
home which is above, and dwell in the purer earth; and those who have duly purified themselves with philosophy live
henceforth altogether without the body, in mansions fairer far than these...
I do not mean to affirm that the description which I have given of the soul and her missions is exactly true—a man of
sense ought hardly say that. But I do say that, inasmuch as the soul is shown to be immortal, he may venture to think,
not improperly or unworthily, that something of this kind is true.
Let a man be of good cheer about his soul, who has cast away the pleasures and ornaments of the body as alien to
him, and rather hurtful in their effects, and has followed after the pleasures of knowledge in this life; who has adorned
the soul in her own proper jewels, which are temperance, and justice, and courage, and nobility, and truth—in these
arrayed she is ready to go on her journey to the world below, when her time comes. You, Simmias and Cebes, and all
other men, will depart at some time or other. Me already, as the tragic poet would say, the voice of fate calls.
[In what way would you have us bury you?] In any way that you like; only you must get hold of me, and take care that
I do not walk away from you. ...I cannot make Crito believe that I am the same Socrates who have been talking and
conducting the argument; he fancies that I am the other Socrates whom he will soon see, a dead body... And though I
have spoken many words in the endeavor to show that when I have drunk the poison I shall leave you and go to the
joys of the blessed—these words of mine, with which I comforted you and myself, have had, I perceive, no effect
upon Crito. ...you should be my surety to him that I shall not remain, but go away and depart; and then he will suffer
less at my death, and not be grieved when he sees my body being burned or buried.
I would not have him sorrow at my hard lot, or say at the burial, Thus we lay out Socrates, or, Thus we follow him to
the grave or bury him; for false words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil. Be of good
cheer then, my good Crito, and say that you are burying my body only, and do with that as is usual, and as you think
best.
What do you say about making a libation out of this cup to any god? ...I may and I must pray to the gods to prosper
my journey from this to that other world—may this, then, which is my prayer, be granted to me. [Then holding the cup
to his lips, quite readily and cheerfully he drank off the poison. And hitherto most of us had been able to control their
sorrow; but now, when we saw him drinking, and saw too, that he had finished the draft, we could no longer forbear,
and in spite of myself my own tears were flowing fast; so that I covered my face and wept over myself, for certainly I
was not weeping over him, but at my own calamity at having lost such a companion. Nor was I the first, for Crito,
when he found himself unable to restrain his tears, had got up, and moved away, and I followed; and at that moment,
Apollodorus, who had been weeping all the time, broke out in a loud cry which made cowards of us all. Socrates
alone retained his calmness:] What is this strange outcry? ...I sent away the women mainly in order that they might
not offend in this way, for I have heard that a man should die in peace. Be quiet then, and have patience.
There is no greater evil one can suffer than to hate reasonable discourse.
By means of beauty all beautiful things become beautiful. For this appears to me the safest answer to give both to
myself and others; and adhering to this, I think that I shall never fall, but that it is a safe answer both for me and any
one else to give — that by means of beauty beautiful things become beautiful.
Phaedo
He who has lived as a true philosopher has reason to be of good cheer when he is about to die, and that after death
he may hope to receive the greatest good in the other world.
Phaedo
False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.
Phaedo 115e
literally: 'For know well', he said, 'o dearest Kriton, that to not speak well is not only sinful by itself, but lets evil
intrude into the soul.'(εὖ γὰρ ἴσθι, ἦ δ᾽ ὅς, ὦ ἄριστε Κρίτων, τὸ μὴ καλῶς λέγειν οὐ μόνον εἰς αὐτὸ τοῦτο
πλημμελές, ἀλλὰ καὶ κακόν τι ἐμποιεῖ ταῖς ψυχαῖς.)
Last words
Ὦ Κρίτων […] τῷ Ἀσκληπιῷ ὀφείλομεν ἀλεκτρυόνα. ἀλλὰ ἀπόδοτε καὶ μὴ ἀμελήσητε.
Crito, Crito, we owe a cock to Aesculapius. Pay it and do not neglect it.
Phaedo 118a
Xenophon
Words of Socrates as quoted by Xenophon
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.
Memorabilia I.4.18
Order and discipline are the most important things in an army, and without them it is impossible to have any other
service of the troops than of a confused heap of stones, bricks, timber, and tiles; but when everything is in its due
place, as in a building, when the foundations and the covering are made of materials that will not grow rotten, and
which no wet can damage, such as are stones and tiles, and when the bricks and timber are employed in their due
places in the body of the edifice, they altogether make a house, which we value among our most considerable
enjoyments.
Memorabilia III.1
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. But you cannot see that, if you are careless; for it will
not come of its own accord.
Memorabilia III.7.8
If I am to live longer, perhaps I must live out my old age, seeing and hearing less, understanding worse, coming to
learn with more difficulty and to be more forgetful, and growing worse than those to whom I was once superior.
Indeed, life would be unliveable, even if I did not notice the change. And if I see the change, how could life not be
even more wretched and unpleasant?
Memorabilia IV.8.8
ἆρα, ἔφην, ὦ Ἰσχόμαχε, ἡ ἐρώτησις διδασκαλία ἐστίν; ἄρτι γὰρ δή, ἔφην ἐγώ, καταμανθάνω ᾗ με ἐπηρώτησας ἕκαστα:
ἄγων γάρ με δι᾽ ὧν ἐγὼ ἐπίσταμαι, ὅμοια τούτοις ἐπιδεικνὺς ἃ οὐκ ἐνόμιζον ἐπίστασθαι ἀναπείθεις, οἶμαι, ὡς καὶ
ταῦτα ἐπίσταμαι.
Really, Ischomachus, I am disposed to ask: "Does teaching consist in putting questions?" Indeed, the secret of
your system has just this instant dawned upon me. I seem to see the principle in which you put your questions.
You lead me through the field of my own knowledge, and then by pointing out analogies to what I know, persuade
me that I really know some things which hitherto, as I believed, I had no knowledge of.
Oeconomicus (The Economist) XIX.15 (as translated by H. G. Dakyns)
It is the example of the rider who wishes to become an expert horseman: "None of your soft-mouthed, docile animals
for me," he says; "the horse for me to own must show some spirit" in the belief, no doubt, if he can manage such an
animal, it will be easy enough to deal with every other horse besides. And that is just my case. I wish to deal with
human beings, to associate with man in general; hence my choice of wife. I know full well, if I can tolerate her spirit, I
can with ease attach myself to every human being else.
Symposium 17–19 [= 2.10]
Plutarch
Socrates as quoted by Plutarch
I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.
Note: Compare doctrine of fidelity to Athenian law in Plato's Crito.
Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.
Plutarch Moralia, How the Young Man Should Study Poetry

Variant translation: Base men live to eat and drink, and good men eat and drink to live.
Diogenes Laertius
Socrates as quoted in Diogenes Laertius' Lives of Eminent Philosophers
Ηe knew nothing except just the fact of his ignorance.
Alternate translation: I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.

II.32. Original Greek: εἰδέναι μὲν μηδὲν πλὴν αὐτὸ τοῦτο [εἰδέναι].
Often when looking at a mass of things for sale, he would say to himself, "How many things I have no need of!"
Variant: How many things I can do without!
[H]e was nearest to the gods in that he had the fewest wants.
There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.
Variant: The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.
Socrates II: xxxi (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=D.+L.+2.5.31&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A199
9.01.0257#note-link14). Original Greek: ἓν μόνον ἀγαθὸν εἶναι, τὴν ἐπιστήμην, καὶ ἓν μόνον κακόν, τὴν ἀμαθίαν
Socrates having heard Plato read the Lysis, said, "O Hercules! what a number of lies the young man has told about
me." For he had set down a great many things as sayings of Socrates which he never said.
He [Socrates] would say that the rest of the world lived to eat, while he himself ate to live.
Socrates II: xxiv (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=D.+L.+2.5.24&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A199

9.01.0258#note-link18). Original Greek: ἔλεγέ τε τοὺς μὲν ἄλλους ἀνθρώπους ζῆν ἵν᾽ ἐσθίοιεν: αὐτὸς δὲ ἐσθίειν ἵνα
ζῴη.
Attributed
Contentment is natural wealth; luxury, artificial poverty.
As reported by Charles Simmons in A Laconic Manual and Brief Remarker, containing over a thousand subjects
alphabetically and systematically arranged (North Wrentham, Mass. 1852), p. 103 (http://books.google.de/books?i
d=YOAyAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA103&dq=socrates). However, the original source of this statement is unknown.
Cf. Joseph Addison in The Spectator No. 574 Friday, July 30, 1714, p. 655 (http://books.google.de/books?id=K1cd
AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA655&dq=socrates): In short, content is equivalent to wealth, and luxury to poverty; or, to give
the thought a more agreeable turn, "content is natural wealth," says Socrates: to which I shall add, "luxury is
artificial poverty.".
If we are to use women for the same things as the men, we must also teach them the same things.
Socrates, as quoted by Bettany Hughes: "Feminism started with the Buddha and Confucius 25 centuries ago" (htt
p://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11785181/Feminism-started-with-the-Buddha-and-Confucius-25-cent
uries-ago.html).
The state will only ever be a half of itself.
Socrates in Plato's Republic talking about women lacking rights. As quoted by Bettany Hughes: "Feminism started
with the Buddha and Confucius 25 centuries ago" (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11785181/Femi
nism-started-with-the-Buddha-and-Confucius-25-centuries-ago.html).
Socrates: Shall we set down astronomy among the objects of study? Glaucon: I think so, to know something about
the seasons, the months and the years is of use for military purposes, as well as for agriculture and for navigation.
Socrates: It amuses me to see how afraid you are, lest the common herd of people should accuse you of
recommending useless studies.
Socrates as quoted by Plato. In Richard Garnett, Léon Vallée, Alois Brandl (eds.), The Universal Anthology: A
Collection of the Best Literature (1899), Vol. 4, 111.
Misattributed
Know thyself.
This statement actually predates Socrates, and was used as an

Inscription at the Oracle of Delphi. It is a saying traditionally
ascribed to one of the "Seven Sages of Greece", notably Solon, but
accounts vary as to whom. Socrates himself is reported to have
quoted it although it is very likely that Thales was in fact the one
who first stated it.
The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for
authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of
exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their
households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They
contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at
the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.
Adapted from a passage in Schools of Hellas (http://www.archive.or

g/stream/schoolsofhellasa008878mbp#page/n105/mode/2up), the
posthumously published dissertation of Kenneth John Freeman
(1907). The original passage was a paraphrase of the complaints
directed against young people in ancient times. See the Quote
Investigator article (http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbeh As for me, all I know is that I know
aving-children-in-ancient-times/). nothing.
see Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations Requested
from the Congressional Research Service, Edited by Suzy Platt,
1989, number 195 (http://www.bartleby.com/73/195.html).
See also this (http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=398104) discussion about the topic.
Actually a paraphrase of a quote (lines 961–985 (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1
999.01.0241:card%3D961)) from Aristophanes' The Clouds, a comedic play known for its caricature of
Socrates.
Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.
No findable citation to Socrates. First appears in this form in the 1990s, such as in the Douglas Bradley article
"Lighting a Flame in the Kickapoo Valley", Wisconsin Ideas, UW System, 1994. It appears to be a variant on a
statement from Plutarch in On Listening to Lectures: "The correct analogy for the mind is not a vessel that
needs filling, but wood that needs igniting — no more — and then it motivates one towards originality and
instills the desire for truth." Alternate translation, from the Loeb Classical Library edition, 1927 (http://penelope.
uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/De_auditu*.html): "For the mind does not require filling
like a bottle, but rather, like wood, it only requires kindling to create in it an impulse to think independently and
an ardent desire for the truth." Often quoted as, "The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled."
Variants of the quote that are correctly attributed to Plutarch but which substitute "education" for "the mind"
date back at least as far as the 1960s, as seen in the 1968 book Vision and Image by James Johnson
Sweeney, p. 119 (http://books.google.com/books?id=d58FAAAAMAAJ&q=plutarch#search_anchor).
Variants with "education" are also sometimes misattributed to William Butler Yeats, as in the 1993 book The
Harper Book of Quotations (third edition), p. 138 (http://books.google.com/books?id=THl7kUfSqCUC&lpg=PP1
&pg=PA138#v=onepage&q&f=false). In the previously-mentioned Vision and Image, the misquote of Plutarch
involving "education" (which has exactly the same wording as the quote attributed to Yeats in The Harper Book
of Quotations) is immediately preceded by a different quote from Yeats ("Culture does not consist in acquiring
opinions but in getting rid of them"), so it's possible this is the source of the confusion—see the snippets here
(http://books.google.com/books?id=d58FAAAAMAAJ&q=yeats+culture#search_anchor) and here (http://books.
google.com/books?id=d58FAAAAMAAJ&q=%22getting+rid+of+them%22#search_anchor).
The misattribution may also be related to a statement about Plato's views made by Benjamin Jowett in the
introduction to his translation of Plato's Republic (in which all the main ideas were attributed to Socrates, as in
all of Plato's works), on p. cci (http://books.google.com/books?id=Cg_QX4yoOSQC&pg=PR201#v=onepage&q
&f=false) of the third edition (1888): "Education is represented by him, not as the filling of a vessel, but as the
turning the eye of the soul towards the light." Jowett seems to be loosely paraphrasing a statement Plato
attributes to Socrates in a dialogue with Glaucon, in sections 518b (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?d
oc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D7%3Asection%3D518b)–518c (http://www.perseus.tufts.e
du/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D7%3Asection%3D518c) of book 7 of
The Republic, where Socrates says: "education is not in reality what some people proclaim it to be in their
professions. What they aver is that they can put true knowledge into a soul that does not possess it, as if they
were inserting vision into blind eyes … But our present argument indicates that the true analogy for this
indwelling power in the soul and the instrument whereby each of us apprehends is that of an eye that could not
be converted to the light from the darkness except by turning the whole body."
Further discussion of the history of this quote can be found in this entry (http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/03/2
8/mind-fire/) from the "Quote Investigator" website.
The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.
This is actually a quotation (http://books.google.com/books?id=FUIHmRHf8SUC&lpg=PA130&dq=%22not%20

on%20fighting%20the%20old%20but%20on%20building%20the%20new%22&pg=PA130#v=onepage&q=%22
not%20on%20fighting%20the%20old%20but%20on%20building%20the%20new%22&f=false) from a
character named Socrates in Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book that Changes Lives (http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Way_of_the_Peaceful_Warrior), by Dan Millman.
The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.
No findable citation to Socrates. Found ascribed to Socrates in Stephen Covey (1992), Principle Centered
Leadership (1990) p. 51 (https://books.google.com/books?id=w4zCIPZrniQC&pg=PA51&dq=%22be+what+we
+pretend+to+be%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiyvZnCg5HKAhUU5mMKHQIIAIgQ6AEIHTAA#v=onepage&
q=%22be%20what%20we%20pretend%20to%20be%22&f=false).
When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.
Does not appear in any works with direct sources to Socrates. Origin and earliest use unknown.
As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.
See All I know is that I know nothing on Wikipedia for a detailed account of the origins of this attribution.
μοι νυνὶ γέγονεν ἐκ τοῦ διαλόγου μηδὲν εἰδέναι· ὁπότε γὰρ τὸ δίκαιον μὴ οἶδα ὅ ἐστιν, σχολῇ εἴσομαι εἴτε ἀρετή
τις οὖσα τυγχάνει εἴτε καὶ οὔ, καὶ πότερον ὁ ἔχων αὐτὸ οὐκ εὐδαίμων ἐστὶν ἢ εὐδαίμων.
Hence the result of the discussion, as far as I'm concerned, is that I know nothing, for when I don't know
what justice is, I'll hardly know whether it is a kind of virtue or not, or whether a person who has it is happy
or unhappy.
Republic, 354b-c (conclusion of book I), as translated by M.A. Grube in Republic (Grube Edition) (1992)
revised by C.D.C. Reeve, p. 31
Confer Apology 21d (see above), Theaetetus 161b (see above) and Meno 80d1-3: "So now I do not know what
virtue is; perhaps you knew before you contacted me, but now you are certainly like one who does not know."
Confer Cicero, Academica, Book I, section 1 (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%
3A2007.01.0032%3Abook%3D1): "ipse se nihil scire id unum sciat ("He himself thinks he knows one thing, that
he knows nothing"). Often quoted as "scio me nihil scire" or "scio me nescire." A variant is found in von Kues,
De visione Dei, XIII, 146 (Werke, Walter de Gruyter, 1967, p. 312): "...et hoc scio solum, quia scio me nescire...
[I know alone, that (or because) I know, that I do not know]." In the modern era, the Latin quote was back-
translated to Greek as "ἓν οἶδα ὅτι οὐδὲν οἶδα", hèn oîda hóti oudèn oîda).
Confer Diogenes Laertius, II.32 (see above)
Quotes about Socrates

Alphabetized by author
Socrates makes me admit to myself that, even though I myself am

deficient in so many regards, I continue to take no care of myself, but
occupy myself with the business of the Athenians.
Alcibiades in Plato, Symposium, 216a
This man here is so bizarre, his ways so unusual, that, search as you
might, you'll never find anyone else, alive or dead, who's even remotely
like him. The best you do is not to compare him to anything human, but
liken him, as I do, to Silenus and the satyrs, and the same goes for his Socrates makes me admit to myself
ideas and arguments.
that, even though I myself am
Alcibiades, as quoted in Symposium by Plato deficient in so many regards, I
continue to take no care of myself,
And so, from this day forth, we want all the more to let our thoughts but occupy myself with the business
revolve around and hover over Socrates and Christ at all times, openly
of the Athenians. ~ Alcibiades
taking pride that they are more alive for us than all those living today and
that we listen to and love them as we do none of the living.
Constantin Brunner, in Our Christ : The Revolt of the Mystical Genius

(1921), as translated by Graham Harrison and Michael Wex, edited by
A. M. Rappaport, p. 188
Socrates and Christ speak to us everlastingly of mankind. … It belongs to

the great, to the greatest men to say how things are with mankind, how
they stand in its innerness and which way it is going; it belongs to
Socrates and Christ. These absolutely extraordinary, eternally alive people
penetrate to the groundless depth of human nature and understand the
speech of ordinary people, of those who are scarcely alive from one day to
the next.
Constantin Brunner, in Our Christ : The Revolt of the Mystical Genius

(1921), as translated by Graham Harrison and Michael Wex, edited by
A. M. Rappaport, p. 189
Socrates autem primus philosophiam devocavit e caelo et in urbibus

conlocavit et in domus etiam introduxit et coegit de vita et moribus
rebusque bonis et malis quaerere.
Socrates was the first to call philosophy down from the sky, to place it
in cities, to introduce it even into homes, to force it to consider life and
customs, good and evil.
Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, 5.10 (tr. Thomas Habinek)
Socrates was a totally new kind of Greek philosopher. He denied that he

had discovered some new wisdom, indeed that he possessed any wisdom
at all, and he refused to hand anything down to anyone as his personal Socrates was the chief saint of the
‘truth’, his claim to fame. All that he knew, humbly, was how to reason and Stoics throughout their history… ~
reflect, how to improve himself and (if they would follow him in behaving Bertrand Russell
the same way) help others to improve themselves, by doing his best to
make his own moral, practical opinions, and his life itself, rest on
appropriately tested and examined reasons—not on social authority or the
say-so of esteemed poets (or philosophers) or custom or any other kind of intellectual laziness. At the same time, he
made this self-improvement and the search for truth in which it consisted a common, joint effort, undertaken in
discussion together with similarly committed other persons—even if it sometimes took on a rather combative aspect.
The truth, if achieved, would be a truth attained by and for all who would take the trouble to think through on their own
the steps leading to it: it could never be a personal‘revelation’ for which any individual could claim special credit.
John M. Cooper, Introduction to Plato's Complete Works (1996)
What then is the chastisement of those who accept it not? To be as they are. Is any discontented with being alone? let
him be in solitude. Is any discontented with his parents? let him be a bad son, and lament. Is any discontented with
his children? let him be a bad father.—"Throw him into prison!"—What prison?—Where he is already: for he is there
against his will; and wherever a man is against his will, that to him is a prison. Thus Socrates was not in prison since
he was there with his own consent.
Epictetus, Golden Sayings of Epictetus #32
It was the first and most striking characteristic of Socrates never to become heated in discourse, never to utter an
injurious or insulting word—on the contrary, he persistently bore insult from others and thus put an end to the fray.
Triginta tyranni Socratem circumsteterunt nec potuerunt animum eius infringere.
There were thirty tyrants surrounding Socrates, and yet they could not break his spirit.
Seneca, Epistulae morales ad Lucilium, letter 28
Seemeth it nothing to you, never to accuse, never to blame either God or Man? to wear ever the same countenance
in going forth as in coming in? This was the secret of Socrates: yet he never said that he knew or taught anything...
Who amongst you makes this his aim? Were it indeed so, you would gladly endure sickness, hunger, aye, death itself.
Neither one nor the other doth follow, for that both the assertions may be true. The Oracle adjudged Socrates the wi-
sest of all men, whose knowledg is limited; Socrates acknowledgeth that he knew nothing in relation to absolute
wisdome, which is infinite; and because of infinite, much is the same part as is little, and as is nothing (for to arrive...
to the infinite number, it is all one to accumulate thousands, tens, or ciphers,) therefore Socrates well perceived his
wisdom to be nothing, in comparison of the infinite knowledg which he wanted. But yet, because there is some
knowledg found amongst men, and this not equally shared to all, Socrates might have a greater share thereof than
others, and therefore verified the answer of the Oracle.
Galileo Galilei, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632) as quoted in the Salusbury translation,
The Systeme of the World: in Four Dialogues (1661) p. 85
Agnosticism, in fact, is not a creed, but a method, the essence of which lies in the rigorous application of a single
principle. That principle is of great antiquity; it is as old as Socrates; as old as the writer who said, 'Try all things, hold
fast by that which is good'; it is the foundation of the Reformation, which simply illustrated the axiom that every man
should be able to give a reason for the faith that is in him, it is the great principle of Descartes; it is the fundamental
axiom of modern science.
Thomas Henry Huxley, "Agnosticism"
I would trade all of my technology for an afternoon with Socrates.
Steve Jobs in Newsweek (29 October 2001)
Socrates gave a lot of advice, and he was given Hemlock to drink.
Rose Kennedy, in an interview with Barbara Walters (November 1968)
People think the world needs a republic, and they think it needs a new social order, and a new religion, but it never
occurs to anyone that what the world really needs, confused as it is by much learning, is a new Socrates.
Søren Kierkegaard, in The Sickness unto Death (1849), as translated by Alastair Hannay (1989), p. 124
It is exactly as it was in the time of Socrates, according to the accusation brought against him: “Everyone
understood how to instruct the young men; there was but one single individual who did not understand it –
that was Socrates.” So in our time, “all” are the wise, there is only one single individual here and there who is
a fool. So near is the world to having achieved perfection that now “all” are wise; if it were not for the individual cranks
and fools the world would be absolutely perfect. Through all this God sits in heaven. No one longs to be away from
the noise and clamor of the moment in order to find the stillness in which God dwells. While man admires man, and
admires him – because he is just like everyone else, no one longs for the solitude wherein one worships God. No one
disdains this cheap intermission from aiming at the highest, by longing for the standard of the eternal! So important
has the immediate itself become. It is for this reason that superficial disinterestedness is needed. Oh, that I might in
truth present such a disinterested figure!
Soren Kierkegaard, Works of Love, Swenson translation 1946 P. 297 Princeton University Press
For they say that the Athenians were short of men and, wishing to increase the population, passed a decree
permitting a citizen to marry one Athenian woman and have children by another; and that Socrates accordingly did so.
Diogenes Laërtius, ii. 26
It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.
And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. The
other party to the comparison knows both sides.
John Stuart Mill in Utilitarianism, Ch. 2
Political leaders are never leaders. For leaders we have to look to the Awakeners! Lao Tse, Buddha, Socrates, Jesus,
Milarepa, Gurdjiev, Krishnamurti.
Henry Miller, in My Bike & Other Friends (1977), p. 12
There is nothing more remarkable in the life of Socrates than that he found time in his old age to learn to dance and
play on instruments, and thought it was time well spent.
Michel de Montaigne, The Essays of Montaigne, Vol. 2, p. 593
Socrates … has nothing on his lips but draymen, joiners, cobblers and masons. His inductions and comparisons are
drawn from the most ordinary and best-known of men’s activities; anyone can understand him. Under so common a
form we today would never have discerned the nobility and splendour of his astonishing concepts; we who judge any
which are not swollen up by erudition to be base and commonplace and who are never aware of riches except when
pompously paraded. Our society has been prepared to appreciate nothing but ostentation: nowadays you can fill men
up with nothing but wind and then bounce them about like balloons. But this man, Socrates, did not deal with vain
notions: his aim was to provide us with matter and precepts which genuinely and intimately serve our lives.
Michel de Montaigne, Essays, M. Screech, trans. (1991), Book III, Chapter 12, “Of Physiognomy,” p. 1173
Socrates … is the first philosopher of life [Lebensphilosoph], … Thinking serves life, while among all previous
philosophers life had served thought and knowledge. … Thus Socratic philosophy is absolutely practical: it is hostile
to all knowledge unconnected to ethical implications.
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Pre-Platonic Philosophers, G. Whitlock trans., p. 145
We cannot help but see Socrates as the turning-point, the vortex of world history.
Friedrich Nietzsche, in The Birth of Tragedy (1872), p. 73
The more I read about him, the less I wonder that they poisoned him. If he had treated me as he is said to have
treated Protagoras, Hippias, and Gorgias, I could never have forgiven him.
Thomas Babington Macaulay, Letter to Thomas Ellis, 29 May 1835, in George Otto Trevelyan, The Life and
Letters of Lord Macaulay (1876)
The wisest of you men is he who has realized, like Socrates, that in respect of wisdom he is really worthless.
Plato, in Apology, 23b, as quoted in The last days of Socrates: Euthyphro, The apology: Crito [and] Phaedo
(1967), p. 52
Every one is agreed that Socrates was very ugly; he had a snub nose and a considerable paunch; he was "uglier than
all the Silenuses in the Satyric drama" ( Xenophon, Symposium). He was always dressed in shabby old clothes, and
went barefoot everywhere. His indifference to heat and cold, hunger and thirst, amazed every one. Alcibiades in the
Symposium, describing Socrates on military service, says:
"His endurance was simply marvellous when, being cut off from our supplies, we were compelled to go without food
— on such occasions, which often happen in time of war, he was superior not only to me but to everybody: there was
no one to be compared to him. ...His fortitude in enduring cold was also surprising. There was a severe frost, for the
winter in that region is really tremendous, and everybody else either remained indoors, or if they went out had on an
amazing quantity of clothes, and were well shod, and had their feet swathed in felt and fleeces: in the midst of this,
Socrates with his bare feet on the ice and in his ordinary dress marched better than the other soldiers who had shoes,
and they looked daggers at him because he seemed to despise them."
His mastery over all bodily passions is constantly stressed. He seldom drank wine, but when he did, he could out-
drink anybody; no one had ever seen him drunk. In love, even under the strongest temptations, he remained
"Platonic," if Plato is speaking the truth. He was the perfect Orphic saint: in the dualism of heavenly soul and earthly
body, he had achieved the complete mastery of the soul over the body. His indifference to death at the last is the final
proof of this mastery.
Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy (1945), Book One, Part II, Chapter XI: Socrates, p. 90-91
We are told that Socrates, though indifferent to wine, could, on occasion, drink more than anybody else, without ever
becoming intoxicated. It was not drinking that he condemned, but pleasure in drinking. In like manner, the philosopher
must not care for the pleasures of love, or for costly raiment, or sandals, or other adornments of the person. He must
be entirely concerned with the soul, and not with the body: "He would like, as far as he can, to get away from the body
and to turn to the soul."
Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy (1945), Book One, Part II, Chapter XVI: Plato's Theory of
Immortality, p. 135
The Platonic Socrates was a pattern to subsequent philosophers for many ages... His merits are obvious. He is
indifferent to worldly success, so devoid of fear that he remains calm and urbane and humorous to the last moment,
caring more for what he believes to be the truth than for anything else whatever. He has, however, some very grave
defects. He is dishonest and sophistical in argument, and in his private thinking he uses intellect to prove conclusions
that are to him agreeable, rather than in a disinterested search for knowledge. There is something smug and
unctuous about him, which reminds one of a bad type of cleric. His courage in the face of death would have been
more remarkable if he had not believed that he was going to enjoy eternal bliss in the company of the gods. Unlike
some of his predecessors, he was not scientific in his thinking, but was determined to prove the universe agreeable to
his ethical standards. This is treachery to truth, and the worst of philosophic sins. As a man, we may believe him
admitted to the communion of saints; but as a philosopher he needs a long residence in a scientific purgatory.
Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy (1945), Book One, Part II, Chapter XVI: Plato's Theory of
Immortality, p. 142-43
Socrates was the chief saint of the Stoics throughout their history; his attitude at the time of his trial, his refusal to
escape, his calmness in the face of death, and his contention that the perpetrator of injustice injures himself more
than his victim, all fitted in perfectly with Stoic teaching. So did his indifference to heat and cold, his plainness in
matters of food and dress, and his complete independence of all bodily comforts.
Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy (1945), Book One, Part III, Chapter XXVIII: Stoicism, p. 253
With the trial of Socrates, the history of Western political thinking begins. Socrates’s death sparked off Plato’s
astonishing philosophical career. Only five of Plato’s dialogues are centrally concerned with politics, though many
bear on the practice of Athenian democracy.
Alan Ryan, On Politics: A History of Political Thought: From Herodotus to the Present (2012), Ch. 1 : Why
Herodotus?
Politics may also have lain behind the trial. Socrates’s friendship with the opponents of the democracy, both in the
recent past and earlier in the case of Alcibiades, had alienated his fellow citizens. They did not mean him to die. At his
trial, he was offered the chance to stop teaching, but would not take it.
Alan Ryan, On Politics: A History of Political Thought: From Herodotus to the Present (2012), Ch. 1 : Why
Herodotus?
It's important to remember that Thomas Huxley recognized Socrates as the first agnostic. Socrates very much
believed in a God, although his deity was somewhat vague and outside of his people's polytheistic religion.
Philosophically Socrates was the very essence of agnosticism.
James Kirk Wall, in Agnosticism : The Battle Against Shameless Ignorance (2011), p. 10
If anyone thinks that Socrates is proven to have lied about his daimon because the jury condemned him to death
when he stated that a divinity revealed to him what he should and should not do, then let him take note of two things:
first, that Socrates was so far advanced in age that he would have died soon, if not then; and second, that he
escaped the most bitter part of life, when all men's mental powers diminish.
Xenophon in Memorabilia, IV. 8.1

See also
A History of Western Philosophy#Chapter XI. Socrates
Plato
Xenophon
External links
Socrates (http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/GREECE/SOCRATES.HTM) at Washington State University
Project Gutenberg – e-texts on Socrates:
The Dialogues of Plato (http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/authrec?fk_authors=93) (see also Wikipedia

articles on Dialogues by Plato)
The writings of Xenophon (http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/authrec?fk_authors=543), such as the
Memorablia and Hellenica.
The satirical plays by Aristophanes (http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/authrec?fk_authors=965)
Aristotle's writings (http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/authrec?fk_authors=2747)
Voltaire's Socrates (http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/4683)
The Second Story of Meno; a continuation of Socrates' dialogue with Meno in which the boy proves root 2 is
irrational (by an anonymous author) (http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/254)
Ancient Greek schools of philosophy [Collapse]

Pre- Anaxagoras • Anaximander • Anaximenes • Democritus • Empedocles • Heraclitus • Leucippus • Melissus • Parmenides •
Socratic Protagoras • Pythagoras • Thales • Zeno of Elea
Socratic Antisthenes • Aristippus • Aristotle • Diogenes of Sinope • Euclid of Megara • Phaedo of Elis • Plato • Socrates
Apollonius of Tyana • Augustine • Epictetus • Epicurus • John Philoponus • Lucretius • Plotinus • Proclus • Pyrrho • Sextus
Hellenistic
Empiricus • Zeno of Citium
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Socrates - Wikiquote

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Socrates - Wikiquote

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5/28/2018 Socrates - Wikiquote

The unexamined life is not worth

Plato, Symposium, 175d

Socrates' prayer, Phaedrus, 279

Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.

Plato, Republic, 493a

Plato, Republic, 506c

Plato, Republic IX: 586a-b

Plato, Republic, T. Griffith, trans. (2000), 587a

Plato's account of the trial of Socrates. (Translated by Benjamin Jowett

23d The inexperienced in wisdom and

29b [alternate translation]

36c6, as cited in Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life (1995), p. 90

ὁ δὲ ἀνεξέταστος βίος οὐ βιωτὸς ἀνθρώπῳ (ho de anexetastos bios ou biôtos anthrôpôi)

The unexamined life is not worth living for a human being.

Plato's account of Socrates' death.

Ὦ Κρίτων […] τῷ Ἀσκληπιῷ ὀφείλομεν ἀλεκτρυόνα. ἀλλὰ ἀπόδοτε καὶ μὴ ἀμελήσητε.

Words of Socrates as quoted by Xenophon

Symposium 17–19 [= 2.10]

Socrates as quoted by Plutarch

I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.

Note: Compare doctrine of fidelity to Athenian law in Plato's Crito.

Plutarch Moralia, How the Young Man Should Study Poetry

Socrates as quoted in Diogenes Laertius' Lives of Eminent Philosophers

Ηe knew nothing except just the fact of his ignorance.

Alternate translation: I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.

Variant: How many things I can do without!

There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.

Socrates II: xxiv (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=D.+L.+2.5.24&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A199

The state will only ever be a half of itself.

This statement actually predates Socrates, and was used as an

Adapted from a passage in Schools of Hellas (http://www.archive.or

Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.

This is actually a quotation (http://books.google.com/books?id=FUIHmRHf8SUC&lpg=PA130&dq=%22not%20

As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.

Quotes about Socrates

Socrates makes me admit to myself that, even though I myself am

Alcibiades in Plato, Symposium, 216a

Constantin Brunner, in Our Christ : The Revolt of the Mystical Genius

Socrates and Christ speak to us everlastingly of mankind. … It belongs to

Constantin Brunner, in Our Christ : The Revolt of the Mystical Genius

Socrates autem primus philosophiam devocavit e caelo et in urbibus

Socrates was a totally new kind of Greek philosopher. He denied that he

John M. Cooper, Introduction to Plato's Complete Works (1996)

Epictetus, Golden Sayings of Epictetus #32

Epictetus, Golden Sayings of Epictetus #64

Triginta tyranni Socratem circumsteterunt nec potuerunt animum eius infringere.

Seneca, Epistulae morales ad Lucilium, letter 28

Epictetus, Golden Sayings of Epictetus #85

Thomas Henry Huxley, "Agnosticism"

I would trade all of my technology for an afternoon with Socrates.

Steve Jobs in Newsweek (29 October 2001)

Socrates gave a lot of advice, and he was given Hemlock to drink.

Rose Kennedy, in an interview with Barbara Walters (November 1968)

Diogenes Laërtius, ii. 26

John Stuart Mill in Utilitarianism, Ch. 2

Henry Miller, in My Bike & Other Friends (1977), p. 12

Michel de Montaigne, The Essays of Montaigne, Vol. 2, p. 593

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Pre-Platonic Philosophers, G. Whitlock trans., p. 145

Friedrich Nietzsche, in The Birth of Tragedy (1872), p. 73

Xenophon in Memorabilia, IV. 8.1

The Dialogues of Plato (http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/authrec?fk_authors=93) (see also Wikipedia

Ancient Greek schools of philosophy [Collapse]

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