Socrates’ 25 Most Important Quotes. Which resonate with you right now?

 

One of the smartest people is named Socrates, and he was born in Athens, Greece, around 470 BC. He was a Greek philosopher who influenced the Western Logic as well as philosophy. Even though there is little to know about Socrates, we know for sure that he possessed a special personality and philosophy.

He believed that philosophy would help the society become better. Although there were a lot of people who admired him, there were also many who felt threatened by him and his work. So, when there were changes in Politics in Greece, he died by a hemlock poison in 399 BC.

However, his philosophy still lives, and here is a list of 25 of his most important quotes.

  1. “I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think.”
  2. “The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms. ”
  3. “I was afraid that by observing objects with my eyes and trying to comprehend them with each of my other senses I might blind my soul altogether.”
  4. “He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.”
  5. “They are not only idle who do nothing, but they are idle also who might be better employed.”
  6. “I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm; then they might have an unlimited power for doing good.”
  7. “A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.”
  8. “In childhood be modest, in youth temperate, in adulthood just, and in old age prudent.”
  9. “Nature has given us two ears, two eyes, and but one tongue-to the end that we should hear and see more than we speak.”
  10. “Nothing is to be preferred before justice.”
  11. “Call no man unhappy until he is married.”
  12. “I am not an Athenian, nor a Greek, but a citizen of the world.”
  13. “The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.”
  14. “Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm and constant.”
  15. “Once made equal to man, a woman becomes his superior.”
  16. “The envious person grows lean with the fatness of their neighbor.”
  17. “False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.”
  18. “An education obtained with money is worse than no education at all.”
  19. “Life contains but two tragedies. One is not to get your heart’s desire; the other is to get it.”
  20. “Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions, but those who kindly reprove thy faults.”
  21. “Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.”
  22. “Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people.”
  23. “Prefer knowledge to wealth, for the one is transitory, the other perpetual.”
  24. “Thou shouldst eat to live; not live to eat.”
  25. “Be the kind of person that you want people to think you are.”