Socrates Quotes

128 Sourced Quotes

... 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.]

Socrates
No man undertakes a trade he has not learned, even the meanest; yet everyone thinks himself sufficiently qualified for the hardest of all trades, that of government.

Socrates
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.

Socrates
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.

Socrates
Whenever a number of individuals have a common name, we assume them to have also a corresponding idea or form.

Socrates
Crito, we owe a cock to Aesculapius; please pay it and don't forget it.

Socrates
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.

Socrates
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.

Socrates
... 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.

Socrates
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.

Socrates
... 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...

Socrates
... 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?

Socrates
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.

Socrates
Though flattery blossoms like friendship, yet there is a vast difference in the fruit.

Socrates
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.

Socrates
[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...

Socrates
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...

Socrates
All men's souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine.

Socrates
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.

Socrates
If you were prepared to let me go on those terms [to give up practising philosophy], I should reply to you as follows: 'I have the greatest fondness and affection for you, fellow Athenians, but I will obey my god rather than you'.

Socrates