Top 300 Socrates Quotes (2026 Update)
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251. “The noblest worship is to make yourself as good and as just as you can.”

— Socrates

252. “The reason why we have to acquire wealth is the body, because we are slaves in its service.”

— Socrates

253. “The uninitiated are those who believe in nothing except what they can grasp in their hands, and who deny the existence of all that is invisible.”

— Socrates

254. “The individual leads in order that those who are led can develop their potential as human beings and thereby prosper.”

— Socrates

255. “False language, evil in itself, infects the soul with evil.”

— Socrates

256. “A disorderly mob is no more an army than a heap of building materials is a house.”

— Socrates

257. “An education obtained with money is worse than no education at all.”

— Socrates

258. “Slanderers do not hurt me because they do not hit me.”

— Socrates

259. “All wars are fought for the acquisition of wealth.”

— Socrates

260. “I am confident that there truly is such a thing as living again, that the living spring from the dead, and that the souls of the dead are in existence.”

— Socrates

261. “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.”

— Socrates

262. “I call that man idle who might be better employed.”

— Socrates

263. “Regard your good name as the richest jewel yoou can possibly be possessed of.”

— Socrates

264. “The comic and the tragic lie inseparably close, like light and shadow.”

— Socrates

265. “Do not do to others what angers you if done to you by others.”

— Socrates

266. “The highest realms of thought are impossible to reach without first attaining an understanding of compassion.”

— Socrates

Featured in: Firsts Quotes

267. “Why do you wonder that globetrotting does not help you, seeing that you always take yourself with you? The reason that set you wandering is ever at your heels.”

— Socrates

268. “If you can do only a little. Do what you can. What you cannot enforce, do not command.”

— Socrates

269. “I am that gadfly which God has attached to the state, and all day long and in all places am always fastening upon you, arousing and persuading and reproaching you.”

— Socrates

270. “If you want to be a good saddler, saddle the worst horse; for if you can tame one, you can tame all.”

— Socrates

271. “It is possible that a man could live twice as long if he didn’t spend the first half of his life acquiring habits that shortens the other half.”

— Socrates

272. “The same wind is blowing, and yet one of us may be cold and the other not.”

— Socrates

273. “I am very conscious that I am not wise at all.”

— Socrates

274. “The greatest of all mysteries is the man himself.”

— Socrates

275. “Why should I resent it when an ass kicks me?”

— Socrates

276. “For who is there but you? Who not only claim to be a good man and a gentleman, for many are this, and yet have not the power of making others good. Whereas you are not only good yourself, but also the cause of goodness in others.”

— Socrates

277. “What most counts is not merely to live, but to live right.”

— Socrates

278. “He who has lived as a true philosopher has reason to be of good cheer when he is about to die, and that after death he may hope to receive the greatest good in the other world.”

— Socrates

279. “Wisdom adorneth riches and casteth a shadow over poverty.”

— Socrates

280. “Not I, but the city teaches.”

— Socrates

281. “The partisan when he is engaged in a dispute, cares nothing about the rights of the question, but is anxious only to convince his hearers of his own assertions.”

— Socrates

282. “Wars and revolutions and battles are due simply and solely to the body and its desires.”

— Socrates

283. “Listen not to a tale-bearer or slanderer, for he tells thee nothing out of good-will; but as he discovereth of the secrets of others, so he will of thine in turn.”

— Socrates

284. “A man should inure himself to voluntary labor, and not give up to indulgence and pleasure, as they beget no good constitution of body nor knowledge of mind.”

— Socrates

285. “In every sort of danger there are various ways of winning through, if one is ready to do and say anything whatever.”

— Socrates

286. “All that I know is nothing – I’m not even sure of that.”

— Socrates

287. “Wars and revolutions and battles are due simply and solely to the body and its desires. All wars are undertaken for the acquisition of wealth; and the reason why we have to acquire wealth is the body, because we are slaves in its service.”

— Socrates

288. “Whoever would have his body supple, easy and healthful should learn to dance.”

— Socrates

289. “The beginning is the most important part, especially when dealing with anything young and tender.”

— Socrates

290. “No one does wrong voluntarily.”

— Socrates

291. “Get married, in any case. If you happen to get a good mate, you will be happy; if a bad one, you will become philosophical, which is a fine thing in itself.”

— Socrates

292. “Flattery is like a painted armor; only for show.”

— Socrates

293. “There is no greater magnificence than to defeat oneself. That is the magnificence...”

— Socrates

294. “Is it not, then, better to be ridiculous and friendly than clever and hostile?”

— Socrates

295. “A man can no more make a safe use of wealth without reason than he can of a horse without a bridle.”

— Socrates

296. “Before the birth of Love, many fearful things took place through the empire of necessity; but when this god was born, all things rose to men.”

— Socrates

297. “If you will be guided by me, you will make little account of Socrates, and much more of truth.”

— Socrates

298. “When you propose ridiculous things to believe, too many men will choose to believe nothing at all.”

— Socrates

299. “The bad one is that way because of the ignorance, therefore he can be healed with wisdom.”

— Socrates

300. “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.”

— Socrates