Socrates quotes - page 6

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? (Socrates)
I only wish that wisdom were the kind of thing that flowed ... from the vessel that was full to the one that was empty. View quote
Socrates
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. View quote
Socrates
...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. View quote
Socrates
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. View quote
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. View quote
Socrates
He [Socrates] would say that the rest of the world lived to eat, while he himself ate to live. View quote
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? View quote
Socrates
If we are to use women for the same things as the men, we must also teach them the same things. View quote
Socrates
Follow me, then, and learn. View quote
Socrates
My real opinion is, that as a return for what has been done by me, I deserve a maintenance in the Prytaneum for the rest of my life. (Socrates)
Just as fine clothes and handsome shoes would not be suitable to me. View quote
Socrates
It is a very fine speech, Lysias, but is not suitable for me; for it was manifestly the speech of a lawyer, rather than of a philosopher. View quote
Socrates
and as they, when they have once mastered them, are easily able to manage all others; so I, after managing Xanthippe, can easily live with anyone else whatever. View quote
Socrates
Well, and Xanthippe brings me children. View quote
Socrates
But I am used to it, just as I should be if I were always hearing the noise of a pulley; and you yourself endure to hear geese cackling. View quote
Socrates
Did I not say that Xanthippe was thundering now, and would soon rain? View quote
Socrates
Why was my own dress good enough to live in, and not good enough to die in? View quote
Socrates
Would you, then, have had me deserve death? View quote
Socrates
And nature has condemned them. View quote
Socrates
Do you, then, repent of not being a tyrant too? (Socrates)
Do you not perceive that you are giving me what is of the greatest value? View quote
Socrates
Be of good cheer; for if our guests are sensible men, they will bear with us; and if they are not, we need not care about them. View quote
Socrates
Whichever you do, you will repent it. View quote
Socrates
To avoid excess in everything. View quote
Socrates