Socrates Quotes


  • There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.
  • An honest man is always a child.
  • I am not an Athenian nor a Greek, but a citizen of the world.
  • I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.
  • When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.
  • Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.
  • The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.
  • I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing. 
  • From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.
  • Get not your friends by bare compliments, but by giving them sensible tokens of your love.
  • Know thyself.
  • True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.
  • Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.
  • Be as you wish to seem.
  • Beauty is the bait which with delight allures man to enlarge his kind. 
  • False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil. 
  • Worthless people love only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.
  • Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people.  


Socrates is believed to be the founder of the Greek philosophy. He criticized the false beliefs of the living community and argued that the only guide is the mind. So, he was condemned to death as a result of deep criticism. Despite being a chance to escape, he preferred death.
In his living, there was a close harmony between his thoughts and actions. His this aspect gained respect him and provided the development of his ideas by followers.
Plato, the most famous student of Socrates, raised Aristotle. Aristotle also raised Alexander the Great who enabled the Greek philosophy to spread to the world.
He was constantly trying to reach the truth by asking hard questions and making definitions.This method of work has evolved from Aristotle to renaissance and forms the basis of today's formal logics and systematic ethics.