If you will take my advice you will think little of Socrates, and a great deal more of truth.
SocratesRegard your good name as the richest jewel you can possibly be possessed of - for credit is like fire; when once you have kindled it you may easily preserve it, but if you once extinguish it, you will find it an arduous task to rekindle it again. The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.
SocratesI must first know myself, as the Delphian inscription says; to be curious about that which is not my concern, while I am still in ignorance of my own self, would be ridiculous. And therefore I bid farewell to all this; the common opinion is enough for me. For, as I was saying, I want to know not about this, but about myself: am I a monster more complicated and swollen with passion than the serpent Typho, or a creature of a gentler and simpler sort, to whom Nature has given a diviner and lowlier destiny?
SocratesIt is the greatest good for an individual to discuss virtue (aka areté) every day...for the unexamined life is not worth living.
SocratesIf all misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart.
SocratesIn order that the mind should see light instead of darkness, so the entire soul must be turned away from this changing world, until its eye can learn to contemplate reality and that supreme splendor which we have called the good. Hence there may well be an art whose aim would be to effect this very thing.
SocratesThey are not only idle who do nothing, but they are idle also who might be better employed.
SocratesWhen you want wisdom and insight as badly as you want to breathe, it is then you shall have it.
Socrates...one thing I am ready to fight for as long as I can, in word and act: that is, that we shall be better, braver and more active men if we believe it right to look for what we don't know than if we believe there is no point in looking because what we don't know we can never discover.
SocratesIn 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.
SocratesThe real artist, who knew what he was imitating, would be interested in realities and not in imitations; and would desire to leave as memorials of himself works many and fair; and, instead of being the author of encomiums, he would prefer to be the theme of them.
SocratesIf a man comes to the door of poetry untouched by the madness of the Muses, believing that technique alone will make him a good poet, he and his sane compositions never reach perfection, but are utterly eclipsed by the performances of the inspired madman.
SocratesOne should never do wrong in return, nor mistreat any man, no matter how one has been mistreated by him.
SocratesThe hardest task needs the lightest hand or else its completion will not lead to freedom but to a tyranny much worse than the one it replaces.
SocratesA system of morality that is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception that has nothing sound in it and nothing true.
SocratesObligation sends the children to bed on time, but love tucks the covers in around their necks and passes out kisses and hugs. Yesterday is about experience; tomorrow is about hope; today is about transitioning from one to the other. The happiest people on earth don't have the best of everything... they make the best of everything I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.
Socrates'Wars, factions, and fighting,' said Socrates as he looked forward from his last hour, 'have no other origin than this same body and its lusts... We must set the soul free from it; we must behold things as they are. And having thus got rid of the foolishness of the body, we shall be pure and hold converse with the pure, and shall in our own selves have complete knowledge of the Incorruptible which is, I take it, no other than the very truth.
SocratesNot by wisdom do they [poets] make what they compose, but by a gift of nature and an inspiration similar to that of the diviners and the oracles.
SocratesWhenever a number of individuals have a common name, we assume them to have also a corresponding idea or form.
SocratesThe highest realms of thought are impossible to reach without first attaining an understanding of compassion.
SocratesAre you not ashamed of heaping up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation, and caring so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul?
SocratesLet us reflect in this way, too, that there is good hope that death is a blessing, for it is one of two things: either the dead are nothing and have no perception of anything, or it is, as we are told, a change and a relocation for the soul from here to another place.
SocratesNobody is qualified to become a statesman who is entirely ignorant of the problem of wheat.
SocratesYou think that upon the score of fore-knowledge and divining I am infinitely inferior to the swans. When they perceive approaching death they sing more merrily than before, because of the joy they have in going to the God they serve.
SocratesThe beginning is the most important part, especially when dealing with anything young and tender.
SocratesIf we pursue our habit of eating animals, and if our neighbour follows a similar path, will we need to go to war against our neighbour to secure greater pasturage, because ours will not be enough to sustain us, and our neighbour will have a similar need to wage war on us for the same reason.
Socrates