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Life Quotes by Socrates

58 Life quotes by Socrates

All Life quotes Socrates’s page

Socrates warns against drifting through life without questioning, calling the unexamined life not worth living. He urges people to seek truth, discuss virtue daily, and to see death as harmless for a good person. His quotes blend practical advice with a philosophical view of morality.

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The fewer our wants the more we resemble the Gods.

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Life without enquiry is not worth living for a man.

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It is not living that matters, but living rightly.

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How many things I can do without!

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The examined life is the only life worth living.

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Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.

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How many things are there which I do not want.

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An unexamined life is a life of no account.

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Sometimes you have to let go to see if there was anything worth holding onto.

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“A Life without criticism and status is not a worth living.”

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“It is only in death that we are truly cured of the 'sickness' of life.”

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To live well and honorably and justly are the same thing.

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The real danger in life is not death, but living an evil life.

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Remember what is unbecoming to do is also unbecoming to speak of.

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The easiest and noblest way is not to be crushing others, but to be improving yourselves.

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The wise man seeks death all his life, and for this reason death is not terrifying to him.

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I am confident that there truly is such a thing as living again, that the living spring from the dead, and that…

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Our lives are but specks of dust falling through the fingers of time. Like sands of the hourglass, so are the days…

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Men of Athens, I honor and love you; but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life and…

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No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death. He and his are not neglected by the…

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Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued." "It is not living that matters, but living rightly. The unexamined life…

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It is possible that a man could live twice as long if he didn't spend the first half of his life acquiring…

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The end of life is to be like unto God; and the soul following God, will be like unto Him; He being…

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It is the greatest good for an individual to discuss virtue (aka areté) every day...for the unexamined life is not worth living.

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When I was young, I believed that life might unfold in an orderly way, according to my hopes and expectations. But now…

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The soul is pure when it leaves the body and drags nothing bodily with it, by virtue of having no willing association…

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“We approach truth only inasmuch as we depart from life. For what do we, who love truth, strive after in life? To…

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Those then who know not wisdom and virtue, and are always busy with gluttony and sensuality, go down and up again as…

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You are wrong, sir, if you think that a man who is any good at all should take into account the risk…

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I desire only to know the truth, and to live as well as I can...And, to the utmost of my power, I…

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Do you suppose that I should have lived as long as I have if I had moved in the sphere of public…

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“...{I]f everything that has some share of life were to die, and if after death the dead remained in that form and…

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“If the soul is immortal, it demands our care not only for that part of time which we call life, but for…

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“Perhaps someone may say 'But surely, Socrates, after you have left us you can spend the rest of your life in quietly…

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You too must be of good hope as regards death, gentlemen of the jury, and keep this one truth in mind, that…

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Whom do I call educated? First, those who manage well the circumstances they encounter day by day. Next, those who are decent…

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“I thought that as I had failed in the contemplation of true existence, I ought to be careful that I did not…

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Man's life is like a drop of dew on a leaf.

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Be true to thine own self.

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The unexamined life is not worth living.

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More by Socrates

By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.

Falling down is not a failure. Failure comes when you stay where you have fallen.

Do not go through life like leaf blown from here to there believing whatever you are told.

If the whole world depends on today's youth, I can't see the world lasting another 100 years.

“I only know, I know nothing”

I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.

If measure and symmetry are absent from any composition in any degree, ruin awaits both the ingredients and the composition... Measure and symmetry are…

Marry a good woman, and be happy the rest of your life. Or, marry a bad, and become a good philosopher

“For the fear of death is indeed the pretense of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being a pretense of knowing the unknown; and no…

There is no difference between knowledge and temperance; for he who knows what is good and embraces it, who knows what is bad and…

Besides, it is a shame to let yourself grow old through neglect before seeing how you can develop the maximum beauty and strength of…

The greatest blessing granted to mankind come by way of madness, which is a divine gift.

I desire only to know the truth, and to live as well as I can...And, to the utmost of my power, I exhort all…

So you would rather suffer an injustice than do an injustice?

The end of life is to be like unto God; and the soul following God, will be like unto Him; He being the beginning,…