Socrates
Socrates
Socrates was a classical Greekphilosopher credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy. He is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon and the plays of his contemporary Aristophanes. Plato's dialogues are among the most comprehensive accounts of Socrates to survive from antiquity, though it is unclear the degree to which Socrates himself is "hidden behind his 'best disciple', Plato"...
NationalityGreek
ProfessionPhilosopher
jewels names advice
Regard your good name as the richest jewel yoou can possibly be possessed of.
knows wisest
Wisest is he who knows he knows not.
light darkness obscurity
Obscurity is dispelled by augmenting the light of discernment, not by attacking the darkness.
moving mean abiding
Those then who know not wisdom and virtue, and are always busy with gluttony and sensuality, go down and up again as far as the mean; and in this region they move at random throughout life, but they never pass into the true upper world; thither they neither look, nor do they ever find their way, neither are they truly filled with true being, nor do they ever taste of pure and abiding pleasure.
class cities purpose
Our purpose in founding the city was not to make any one class in it surpassingly happy, but to make the city as a whole as happyas possible.
philosophy love-you teaching
Men of Athens, I honor and love you; but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy.
ignorance firsts acquiring-knowledge
Admitting one's ignorance is the first step in acquiring knowledge ...
death running unrighteousness
The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death.
men thinking greek-philosopher
No man undertakes a trade he has not learned, even the meanest; yet everyone thinks himself sufficiently qualified for the hardest of all trades, that of government.
names may assignments
If I can assign names as well as pictures to objects, the right assignment of them we may call truth, and the wrong assignment of them falsehood.
children years accusing-me
There are a great many of these accusers, and they have been accusing me now for a great many years, and what is more, they approached you at the most impressionable age, when some of you were children or adolescents; and literally won their case by default, because there was no one to defend me.
practice soul wish
The soul, like the body, accepts by practice whatever habit one wishes it to contact.
world ruins ingredients
If measure and symmetry are absent from any composition in any degree, ruin awaits both the ingredients and the composition... Measure and symmetry are beauty and virtue the world over.
excellence habit
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is a habit.