Top 300 Socrates Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “The perfect human being is all human beings put together, it is a collective, it is all of us together that make perfection.”

— Socrates

52. “Beware the barrenness of a busy life.”

— Socrates

53. “The hour of departure has arrived and we go our ways; I to die, and you to live. Which is better? Only God knows.”

— Socrates

54. “Death offers mankind a full view of truth.”

— Socrates

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

— Socrates

56. “It is a disgrace to grow old through sheer carelessness before seeing what manner of man you may become by developing your bodily strength and beauty to their highest limit.”

— Socrates

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

— Socrates

58. “The really important thing is not to live, but to live well. And to live well meant, along with more enjoyable things in life, to live according to your principles.”

— Socrates

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

— Socrates

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

— Socrates

61. “If one knows what is right, he will do it; nobody wants to be evil.”

— Socrates

62. “The greatest blessings granted to mankind come by way of madness, which is a divine gift.”

— Socrates

63. “Are you not ashamed of your eagerness to possess as much wealth, reputation, and honors as possible, while you do not care for nor give thought to wisdom or truth, or the best possible state of your soul?”

— Socrates

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

— Socrates

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

— Socrates

66. “It is best and easiest not to discredit others but to prepare oneself to be as good as possible.”

— Socrates

67. “I soon realized that poets do not compose their poems with knowledge, but by some inborn talent and by inspiration, like seers and prophets who also say many fine things without any understanding of what they say.”

— Socrates

68. “Happiness is unrepented pleasure.”

— Socrates

69. “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.”

— Socrates

70. “Creation is man’s immortality and brings him nearest to the gods.”

— Socrates

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

— Socrates

72. “True perfection is a bold quest to seek. Only the willing and true of heart will seek the betterment of many.”

— Socrates

73. “Get not your friends by bare compliments but by giving them sensible tokens of your love.”

— Socrates

74. “Nobody knows anything, but I, knowing nothing, am the smartest man in the world.”

— Socrates

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

— Socrates

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

— Socrates

77. “The hardest task needs the lightest hand or else its completion will not lead to freedom but to a tyranny much worse than the one it replaces.”

— Socrates

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

— Socrates

79. “Obscurity is dispelled by augmenting the light of discernment, not by attacking the darkness.”

— Socrates

80. “All of the wisdom of this world is but a tiny raft upon which we must set sail when we leave this earth. If only there was a firmer foundation upon which to sail, perhaps some divine word.”

— Socrates

81. “Some have courage in pleasures, and some in pains: some in desires, and some in fears, and some are cowards under the same conditions.”

— Socrates

82. “The life of which meaning one never ponders is not worth living.”

— Socrates

83. “There is a doctrine whispered in secret that a man is a prisoner who has no right to open the door and run away; this is a great mystery which I do not quite understand.”

— Socrates

84. “In every one of us there are two ruling and directing principles, whose guidance we follow wherever they may lead; the one being an innate desire of pleasure; the other, an acquired judgment which aspires after excellence.”

— Socrates

85. “Whatever authority I may have rests solely on knowing how little I know.”

— Socrates

86. “The end of life is to be like unto God; and the soul following God, will be like unto Him; He being the beginning, middle, and end of all things.”

— Socrates

87. “You will know that the divine is so great and of such a nature that it sees and hears everything at once, is present everywhere, and is concerned with everything.”

— Socrates

88. “The greater the power that deigns to serve you, the more honor it demands of you.”

— Socrates

89. “Understanding a question is half an answer.”

— Socrates

90. “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?”

— Socrates

91. “How can you wonder your travels do you no good, when you carry yourself around with you?”

— Socrates

92. “Are not all things which have opposites generated out of their opposites?”

— Socrates

93. “Though flattery blossoms like friendship, yet there is a vast difference in the fruit.”

— Socrates

94. “The tongue of a fool is the key of his counsel, which, in a wise man, wisdom hath in keeping.”

— Socrates

95. “It seems that God took away the minds of poets that they might better express His.”

— Socrates

96. “I have good hope that there is something remaining for the dead.”

— Socrates

97. “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.”

— Socrates

98. “It has been shown that to injure anyone is never just anywhere.”

— Socrates

99. “Malice drinketh up the greater part of its own poison.”

— Socrates

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

— Socrates