Socrates Quotes
Socrates was a classical Athenian philosopher credited as a founder of Western philosophy. He wrote nothing himself; his ideas survive through the dialogues of his students, chiefly Plato and Xenophon. The quotes below are attributed to Socrates, organized by topic.
Socrates on Death
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Attributed to Socrates:
“The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways — I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows.”
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Attributed to Socrates:
“Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.”
Socrates on Happiness
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Attributed to Socrates:
“He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.”
Socrates on Knowledge
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Attributed to Socrates:
“I know that I know nothing.”
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Attributed to Socrates:
“There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.”
Socrates on Life
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Attributed to Socrates:
“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
Socrates on Love
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Attributed to Socrates:
“The hottest love has the coldest end.”
Socrates on Truth
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Attributed to Socrates:
“False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.”
Socrates on Virtue
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Attributed to Socrates:
“Be as you wish to seem.”
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Attributed to Socrates:
“Be slow to fall into friendship, but when thou art in, continue firm and constant.”
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Attributed to Socrates:
“The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavour to be what you desire to appear.”
Things actually not said by Socrates
A number of widely-shared lines are circulated as Socrates but are in fact from someone else. Did Socrates say these? No. Each entry below pairs the line with the person who actually wrote it.
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Did Socrates say this? No.
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
This line was written by the Scottish minister and author John Watson, under the pen name Ian MacLaren, in an 1897 Christmas message published in The British Weekly. The original phrasing was 'Be pitiful, for every man is fighting a hard battle.' It has been misattributed to Plato, Socrates, Philo of Alexandria, and others, but does not appear in any of their works.
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Did Socrates say this? No.
“Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people.”
This saying is sometimes credited to Socrates and sometimes to Eleanor Roosevelt or Henry Thomas Buckle, but no original source has been verified for any of these attributions. It does not appear in any dialogue of Plato or Xenophon, nor in Diogenes Laertius. The earliest verifiable form, 'Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people,' surfaces in compilations from the early 20th century.
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Did Socrates say this? No.
“Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.”
This line is a modern English paraphrase of a passage in Plutarch's essay On Listening to Lectures, where Plutarch writes that 'the mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting.' Plutarch wrote five centuries after Socrates and the line is not attributed to Socrates in any classical source.