Quotes by Socrates

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

By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.

Be as you wish to seem.

"Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions; but those who kindly reprove thy faults."

He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.

Envy is the ulcer of the soul.

True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing. And in knowing that you know nothing, that makes you the smartest of all.

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

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.

The rest of the world lives to eat, while I eat to live.

"The shortest and surest way to live with honour in the world, is to be in reality what we would appear to be; and if we observe, we shall find, that all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice of them."

The unexamined life is not worth living.

I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled [poets] to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.

Let him that would move the world first move himself.

The shortest and surest way to live with honour in the world, is to be in reality what we would appear to be; and if we observe, we shall find, that all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice of them.

emember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity.

The nearest way to glory is to strive to be what you wish to be thought to be.

Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.

The way to gain a good reputation, is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.

Thou shouldst eat to live; not live to eat.