"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing."
— Socrates

"The unexamined life is not worth living."
— Socrates

"Wonder is the beginning of wisdom."
— Socrates

"Know thyself."
— Socrates

"To find yourself, think for yourself."
— Socrates

"The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance."
— Socrates

"Be slow to fall into friendship, but when you are in, continue firm and constant."
— Socrates

"Death may be the greatest of all human blessings."
— Socrates

"By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher."
— Socrates

"I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think"
— Socrates

"Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel."
— Socrates

"Every action has its pleasures and its price."
— Socrates

"I am not an Athenian nor a Greek, but a citizen of the world."
— Socrates

"The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear."
— Socrates

"Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers."
— Socrates

"Prefer knowledge to wealth, for the one is transitory, the other perpetual"
— Socrates

"Do not do to others what angers you if done to you by others."
— Socrates

"He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have."
— Socrates

"Thou shouldst eat to live; not live to eat."
— Socrates

"The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world is to be in reality what we would appear to be."
— Socrates

"Children nowadays are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannise their teachers."
— Socrates

"If you don't get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don't want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can't hold on to it forever. Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is law and no amount of pretending will alter that reality."
— Socrates

"Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty."
— Socrates (Essential Thinkers - Socrates (Barnes & Noble Collector's Library))

"When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser."
— Socrates

"If you want to be a good saddler, saddle the worst horse; for if you can tame one, you can tame all."
— Socrates

"Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions; but those who kindly reprove thy faults."
— Socrates

"Envy is the ulcer of the soul."
— Socrates

"Let him who would move the world first move himself."
— Socrates

"Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for."
— Socrates

"Well, although I do not suppose that either of us know anything really beautiful & good, I am better off than he is- for he knows nothing & thinks that he knows; I neither know nor think that I know."
— Socrates

"If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be content to take their own and depart."
— Socrates

"Beware of the barrenness of a busy life."
— Socrates

"We cannot live better than in seeking to become better."
— Socrates

"Esteemed friend, citizen of Athens, the greatest city in the world, so outstanding in both intelligence and power, aren't you ashamed to care so much to make all the money you can, and to advance your reputation and prestige--while for truth and wisdom and the improvement of your soul you have no care or worry?"
— Socrates

"Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued. "
— Socrates

"From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate."
— Socrates

"And therefore if the head and the body are to be well, you must begin by curing the soul; that is the first and essential thing. And the care of the soul, my dear youth, has to be effected by the use of certain charms, and these charms are fair words; and by them temperance is implanted in the soul, and where temperance comes and stays, there health is speedily imparted, not only to the head, but to the whole body."
— Socrates (Essential Thinkers - Socrates (Barnes & Noble Collector's Library))

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

"In all of us, even in good men, there is a lawless wild-beast nature, which peers out in sleep."
— Socrates

"The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our separate ways, I to die, and you to live. Which of these two is better only God knows."
— Socrates

"The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be."
— Socrates (Essential Thinkers - Socrates (Barnes & Noble Collector's Library))

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

"To express oneself badly is not only faulty as far as the language goes, but does some harm to the soul."
— Socrates

"Virtue does not come from wealth, but. . . wealth, and every other good thing which men have. . . comes from virtue."
— Socrates

"He is not only idle who does nothing, but he is idle who might be better employed."
— Socrates

"…money and honour have no attraction for them; good men do not wish to be openly demanding payment for governing and so to get the name of hirelings, nor by secretly helping themselves out of the public revenues to get the name of thieves. And not being ambitious they do not care about honour. Wherefore necessity must be laid upon them, and they must be induced to serve from the fear of punishment. And this, as I imagine, is the reason why the forwardness to take office, instead of waiting to be compelled, has been deemed dishonourable. Now the worst part of the punishment is that he who refuses to rule is liable to be ruled by one who is worse than himself. And the fear of this, as I conceive, induces the good to take office, not because they would, but because they cannot help — not under the idea that they are going to have any benefit or enjoyment themselves, but as a necessity, and because they are not able to commit the task of ruling to any one who is better than themselves, or indeed as good. For there is reason to think that if a city were composed entirely of good men, then to avoid office would be as much an object of contention as to obtain office is at present…"
— Socrates

"One who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice; and it is not right to return an injury, or to do evil to any moan, however much we have suffered from him."
— Socrates

"Through your rags I see your vanity."
— Socrates

"There is no solution; seek it lovingly "
— Socrates

"I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled [poets] to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean."
— Socrates