Socrates quotes - page 2

Envy is the ulcer of the soul. (Socrates)
Contentment is natural wealth luxury, artificial poverty. View quote
Socrates
He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature. View quote
Socrates
I am quite ready to acknowledge ... 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 (of this I am as certain as I can be of any such matters), 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. View quote
Socrates
In every one of us there are two ruling and directing principles, whose guidance we follow wherever they may lead the one being an innate desire of pleasure the other, an acquired judgment which aspires after excellence. View quote
Socrates
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. View quote
Socrates
True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us. View quote
Socrates
Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death. View quote
Socrates
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. View quote
Socrates
Death may be the greatest of all human blessings. View quote
Socrates
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? (Socrates)
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. View quote
Socrates
You will know that the divine is so great and of such a nature that it sees and hears everything at once, is present everywhere, and is concerned with everything. View quote
Socrates
An honest man is always a child. View quote
Socrates
My divine sign indicates the future to me. View quote
Socrates
Oh dear Pan and all the other Gods of this place, grant that I may be 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. View quote
Socrates
If a rich man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it. View quote
Socrates
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. View quote
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. View quote
Socrates
[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. View quote
Socrates
If the entire soul, then, follows without rebellion the part which loves wisdom, the result is that in general each part can carry out its own function-can be just, in other words-and in particular each is able to 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. (Socrates)
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. View quote
Socrates
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. View quote
Socrates
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. View quote
Socrates
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... View quote
Socrates