Top 300 Socrates Quotes (2025 Update)
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151. “If you would seek health, look first to the spine.”

— Socrates

152. “It is better to make a mistake with full force of your being than to carefully avoid mistakes with a trembling spirit.”

— Socrates

153. “Follow the argument wherever it leads.”

— Socrates

154. “Be of good hope in the face of death. Believe in this one truth for certain, that no evil can befall a good man either in life or death, and that his fate is not a matter of indifference to the gods.”

— Socrates

155. “The Delphic Oracle said that I was the wisest of all the Greeks. It is because I alone of all the Greeks know that I know nothing.”

— Socrates

156. “To know, is to know that you know nothing.”

— Socrates

157. “Fear of women love more than hate the man.”

— Socrates

158. “Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.”

— Socrates

159. “To Believe without evidence and demonstration is an act of ignorance and folly.”

— Socrates

160. “Beauty comes first. Victory is secondary. What matters is joy.”

— Socrates

161. “Nothing is to be preferred before justice.”

— Socrates

162. “There is no possession more valuable than a good and faithful friend.”

— Socrates

163. “The understanding of mathematics is necessary for a sound grasp of ethics.”

— Socrates

164. “The best seasoning for food in hunger; for drink, thirst.”

— Socrates

165. “Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.”

— Socrates

166. “The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world, is to be in reality what we would appear to be, all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice and experience of them.”

— Socrates

167. “This sense of wonder is the mark of the philosopher. Philosophy indeed has no other origin.”

— Socrates

168. “Anybody can be a hellene, by his heart, his mind, his spirit...”

— Socrates

169. “The soul, like the body, accepts by practice whatever habit one wishes it to contact.”

— Socrates

170. “Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers.”

— Socrates

171. “I pray Thee, O God, that I may be beautiful within.”

— Socrates

172. “Virtue does not come from wealth, but wealth, and every other good thing which men have comes from virtue.”

— Socrates

173. “The man who is truly wise knows that he knows very little.”

— Socrates

174. “The body cannot be cured without regard for the soul.”

— Socrates

175. “Improve yourself by other men’s writings thus attaining effortlessly what they acquired through great difficulty.”

— Socrates

176. “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

177. “How many things I can do without!”

— Socrates

178. “The heart of the person before you is a mirror. See there your own form.”

— Socrates

179. “The nearest way to glory a shortcut, as it were is to strive to be what you wish to be thought to be.”

— Socrates

180. “In all of us, even in good men, there is a lawless wild-beast nature, which peers out in sleep.”

— Socrates

181. “Remember, no human condition is ever permanent. Then you will not be overjoyed in good fortune nor too scornful in misfortune.”

— Socrates

182. “Just as you ought not to attempt to cure eyes without head or head without body, so you should not treat body without soul.”

— Socrates

183. “The wise man seeks death all his life, and for this reason death is not terrifying to him.”

— Socrates

184. “Be of good cheer about death and know this as a truth, that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.”

— Socrates

185. “Only the extremely ignorant or the extremely intelligent can resist change.”

— Socrates

186. “To harm another is to harm oneself.”

— Socrates

187. “Living well and beautifully and justly are all one thing.”

— Socrates

188. “People learn more on their own rather than being force fed.”

— Socrates

189. “Nothing is so well learned as that which is discovered.”

— Socrates

190. “He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.”

— Socrates

191. “One who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice.”

— Socrates

192. “True wisdom lies in one’s confession about the limits of one’s knowledge.”

— Socrates

193. “One cannot come closer to the gods than by bringing health to his Fellow Man.”

— Socrates

194. “Man’s life is like a drop of dew on a leaf.”

— Socrates

195. “The first key to greatness is to be in reality what we appear to be.”

— Socrates

196. “I don’t care what people say about me. I do care about my mistakes.”

— Socrates

197. “I prefer to be refuted than to refute, for it is a greater good for oneself to be freed from the greatest evil than to free another.”

— Socrates

198. “The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.”

— Socrates

199. “There is no solution; seek it lovingly.”

— Socrates

200. “By means of beauty all beautiful things become beautiful.”

— Socrates