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Word Gems 

exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity

Socrates

quotations

Socrates: 469 BC - 399 BC

“But already it is time to depart, for me to die, for you to go on living; which of us takes the better course, is concealed from anyone except God."

“I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.”

“Be as you wish to seem.”

“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”

“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.”

“I don’t care what people say about me. I do care about my mistakes.”

"To be uncertain is to be uncomfortable, but to be certain is to be ridiculous.”

“Wisdom begins in wonder.”

“The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.”

“To find yourself, think for yourself.”

“Understanding a question is half an answer.”

“Better to do a little well, then a great deal badly."

“The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.”

“True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.”

“When you want wisdom and insight as badly as you want to breathe, it is then you shall have it.”

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”

“Do not do to others what angers you if done to you by others.”

“Knowing thyself is the height of wisdom.”

“One should never do wrong in return, nor mistreat any man, no matter how one has been mistreated by him.”

“I am a citizen, not of Athens, or Greece, but of the world.”

“There is no possession more valuable than a good and faithful friend.”

“Nobody knows what death is, nor whether to man it is, perchance, the greatest of blessings, yet people fear it as if they surely knew it to be the worst of evils.”

“To move the world we must move ourselves.”

“The cure of many diseases remains unknown to the physicians of Hellos (Greece) because they do not study the whole person.”

“Do not be angry with me if I tell you the truth."

“If what you want to tell me is neither True nor Good nor even Useful, why tell it to me at all?”

“No citizen has a right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training… what a disgrace it is for a man to grow old without ever seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.”

“It is possible that a man could live twice as long if he didn’t spend the first half of his life acquiring habits that shortens the other half."

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”

“True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.”

“The individual leads in order that those who are led can develop their potential as human beings and thereby prosper.”

“As to marriage or celibacy, let a man take which course he will, he will be sure to repent.”

“The understanding of mathematics is necessary for a sound grasp of ethics.”

“The highest realms of thought are impossible to reach without first attaining an understanding of compassion.”

“I pray Thee, O God, that I may be beautiful within.”

“Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior.”

“Thou shouldst eat to live; not live to eat.”

“An honest man is always a child.”

“Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions, but those who kindly reprove thy faults.”

“The right way to begin is to pay attention to the young, and make them just as good as possible.”

“Nobody is qualified to become a statesman who is entirely ignorant of the problem of wheat.”

“I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.”

“Every action has its pleasures and its price.”

“Fellow citizens, why do you burn and scrape every stone to gather wealth and take so little care of your children to whom you must one day relinquish all?”

“Where there is reverence there is fear, but there is not reverence everywhere that there is fear, because fear presumably has a wider extension than reverence.”

“Regard 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.”

“It is not living that matters, but living rightly.”

“The more I learn, the less I realize I know.”

“They are not only idle who do nothing, but they are idle also who might be better employed.”

“See one promontory, one mountain, one sea, one river and see all.”

“Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.”

“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.”

“Wars and revolutions and battles are due simply and solely to the body and its desires.”

“Slanderers do not hurt me because they do not hit me.”

“To know, is to know that you know nothing.”

“Be true to thine own self.”

“He is a man of courage who does not run away, but remains at his post and fights against the enemy.”

“Nothing is to be preferred before justice.”

“Be of good cheer about death and know this as a truth, that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.”

“Living well and beautifully and justly are all one thing.”

“The misuse of language induces evil in the soul.”

“Beauty is the bait which with delight allures man to enlarge his kind.”

“Wisdom is knowing how little we know.”

“The comic and the tragic lie inseparably close, like light and shadow.”

“Fame is the perfume of heroic deeds.”

“When our feet hurt, we hurt all over.”

“Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers.”

“A disorderly mob is no more an army than a heap of building materials is a house."

“If 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.”

“What a lot of things there are a man can do without.”

“He is the richest who is content with the least.”

“Beware the barrenness of a busy life.”

“How many things are there which I do not want.”

“Wonder is the beginning of wisdom. She soars on her own wings.”

“The first key to greatness is to be in reality what we appear to be.”

“Prefer knowledge to wealth, for the one is transitory, the other perpetual.”

“All I know is that I do not know anything.”

“Contentment is natural wealth.”

“The reason why we have to acquire wealth is the body, because we are slaves in its service.”

“All men’s souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine.”

“The beginning is the most important part, especially when dealing with anything young and tender.”

“Virtue does not come from wealth, but wealth, and every other good thing which men have, comes from virtue.”

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

“In every person there is a sun. Just let them shine.”

“Envy is the ulcer of the soul.”