Socrates Quotes on Virtue
Socrates's central ethical thesis, recovered through the early Platonic dialogues, is that virtue is knowledge — that no one knowingly does wrong, and that wrongdoing is therefore always a form of ignorance about what is genuinely good. The corollary is that the virtues — courage, piety, justice, moderation — are at bottom unified rather than separable, since each requires the same underlying knowledge of the human good. Socrates's defense of this thesis at his trial, recorded in Plato's Apology, frames the philosophical life as the pursuit of self-knowledge for the sake of right action.
Quotes
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“There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.”
Variant: The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance. | Socrates II: xxxi . Original Greek: ἓν μόνον ἀγαθὸν εἶναι, τὴν ἐπιστήμην, καὶ ἓν μόνον κακόν, τὴν ἀμαθίαν -
Attributed to Socrates:
“Be as you wish to seem.”
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Attributed to Socrates:
“He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.”
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“False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.”
Plato, Phaedo 115e -
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.”