Top 300 Socrates Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “To find yourself, think for yourself.”

— Socrates

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

— Socrates

Featured in: Change Quotes, Fighting Quotes

3. “Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people.”

— Socrates

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

— Socrates

Featured in: Wisdom Quotes

5. “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

— Socrates

6. “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

— Socrates

7. “No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.”

— Socrates

Featured in: Motivational Quotes

8. “Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.”

— Socrates

9. “I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think.”

— Socrates

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

— Socrates

11. “There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.”

— Socrates

12. “Know thyself.”

— Socrates

13. “Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty.”

— Socrates

14. “What screws us up the most in life is the picture in our head of what it’s supposed to be.”

— Socrates

Featured in: Motivational Quotes

15. “Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.”

— Socrates

16. “When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.”

— Socrates

17. “Be as you wish to seem.”

— Socrates

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

— Socrates

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

— Socrates

20. “We cannot live better than in seeking to become better.”

— Socrates

21. “Smart people learn from everything and everyone, average people from their experiences, stupid people already have all the answers.”

— Socrates

Featured in: Smart Quotes

22. “I only know one thing, and that is I know nothing.”

— Socrates

23. “Wisdom is knowing how little we know.”

— Socrates

24. “There is no learning without remembering.”

— Socrates

25. “Silence is a profound melody, for those who can hear it above all the noise.”

— Socrates

26. “Why should we pay so much attention to what the majority thinks?”

— Socrates

27. “Every action has its pleasures and its price.”

— Socrates

28. “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”

— Socrates

29. “I am a Citizen of the World, and my Nationality is Goodwill.”

— Socrates

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

— Socrates

31. “The years wrinkle our skin, but lack of enthusiasm wrinkles our soul.”

— Socrates

32. “Only the knowledge that comes from inside is the real Knowledge.”

— Socrates

Featured in: Real Quotes

33. “Our lives are but specks of dust falling through the fingers of time. Like sands of the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.”

— Socrates

34. “A multitude of books distracts the mind.”

— Socrates

Featured in: Book Quotes, Reading Quotes

35. “Be the kind of person that you want people to think you are.”

— Socrates

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

— Socrates

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

— Socrates

38. “I shall never fear or avoid things of which I do not know...”

— Socrates

39. “Envy is the ulcer of the soul.”

— Socrates

40. “Sometimes you put walls up not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to break them down.”

— Socrates

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

— Socrates

42. “To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge. For a man who claims to have knowledge, while actually knowing nothing, is less smarter than you, who claim to know nothing.”

— Socrates

43. “The fewer our wants the more we resemble the Gods.”

— Socrates

44. “Be true to thine own self.”

— Socrates

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

— Socrates

46. “Knowledge is our ultimate good.”

— Socrates

47. “Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.”

— Socrates

48. “I know you won’t believe me, but the highest form of Human Excellence is to question oneself and others.”

— Socrates

49. “Do not grieve over someone who changes all of the sudden. It might be that he has given up acting and returned to his true self.”

— Socrates

50. “Wisest is he who knows he knows not.”

— Socrates