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Socrates Quotes and Sayings
Quotes by Socrates

He is richest who is content with the least,
for content is the wealth of nature.
- Socrates

Related topics: Wisdom Inspirational Values Favorite-Quotes Gratitude Simple Simplicity

Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior.
- Socrates

If a man is proud of his wealth,
he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it.
- Socrates

Know thyself.
- Socrates (inscribed on the ancient Greek temple at Delphi)

Beware the barrenness of a busy life.
- Socrates

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

Envy is the ulcer of the soul.
- Socrates

Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.
- Socrates

I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing,
and that is that I know nothing.
- Socrates

All men's souls are immortal,
but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine.
- Socrates

As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.
- Socrates

Wisdom begins in wonder.
- Socrates

The unexamined life is not worth living.
- Socrates

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

Let him that would move the world first move himself.
- Socrates

True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize
how little we understand about life,
ourselves, and the world around us.
- Socrates

By all means marry.
If you get a good wife, you'll be happy.
If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher
and that is a good thing for any man.
- Socrates

He is richest who is content with the least.
- Socrates

I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.
- Socrates

Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.
- Socrates

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
- Socrates

Worthless people live only to eat and drink;
people of worth eat and drink only to live.
- Socrates

If all misfortunes were laid in one common heap
whence everyone must take an equal portion,
most people would be contented to take their own and depart.
- Socrates

From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.
- Socrates

I cannot teach anybody anything.
I can only make them think.
- Socrates

I know that I am intelligent,
because I know that I know nothing.
- Socrates

True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.
- Socrates

Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings,
so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.
- Socrates

False words are not only evil in themselves,
but they infect the soul with evil.
- Socrates

Be slow to fall into friendship;
but when thou art in, continue firm and constant.
- Socrates

The end of life is to be like God,
and the soul following God will be like Him.
- Socrates

Where there is reverence there is fear,
but there is not reverence everywhere that there is fear,
because fear presumably has a wider
extension than reverence.
- Socrates

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

Beauty is the bait which with delight
allures man to enlarge his kind.
- Socrates

I only wish that ordinary people
had an unlimited capacity for doing harm;
then they might have an unlimited power for doing good.
- Socrates

I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.
- Socrates

My advice to you is get married:
if you find a good wife you'll be happy;
if not, you'll become a philosopher.
- Socrates

The poets are only the interpreters of the Gods.
- Socrates

The envious person grows lean
with the fatness of their neighbor.
- Socrates

It is not living that matters, but living rightly.
- Socrates

Be as you wish to seem.
- Socrates

A system of morality which is based
on relative emotional values
is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception
which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.
- Socrates

The shortest and surest way to
live with honor in the world,
is to be in reality
what we would appear to be.
- Socrates

An honest man is always a child.
- Socrates

The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor
to be what you desire to appear.
- Socrates

As to marriage or celibacy, let a man
take which course he will,
he will be sure to repent.
- Socrates

Not life, but good life,
is to be chiefly valued.
- Socrates

Our prayers should be for blessings in general,
for God knows best what is good for us.
- Socrates

The greatest way to live with honor in this world
is to be what we pretend to be.
- Socrates

One who is injured ought not to return the injury,
for on no account can it be right to do an injustice;
and it is not right to return an injury,
or to do evil to any man,
however much we have suffered from him.
- Socrates

Content Quotes and Sayings

My great concern is not whether you have failed,
but whether you are content with your failure.
- Abraham Lincoln

If you want to improve,
be content to be thought foolish and stupid.
- Epictetus

The greatest wealth is to live content with little.
- Plato

The mystery of the beginning
of all things is insoluble by us;
and I for one, must be content to remain an agnostic.
- Charles Darwin

When you are content to be simply yourself
and don't compare or compete,
everybody will respect you.
- Lao Tzu

People disparage knowing and the intellectual life,
and urge doing.
I am content with knowing, if only I could know.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence,
and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.
- Helen Keller

Although personally I am quite content with existing explosives,
I feel we must not stand in the path of improvement.
- Winston Churchill

I look to a day when people will not be judged
by the color of their skin,
but by the content of their character.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Be content with what you have,
rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking,
the whole world belongs to you.
- Lao Tzu

You should never be content with so little,
when you can reach out for something big.
- Charles L. Allen
(This quote is about making a big difference
in the world - not about greed)

One cannot have a mind that is empty of all thoughts,
but one can have a mind that is content with
whatever thoughts fill it at the moment.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I have a dream that my four little children will one day
live in a nation where they will
not be judged by the color of their skin,
but by the content of their character.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Find your balance and stand with it.
Find your song and sing it out.
Find your cadence and let it appear like a dance.
Find the questions that only you know how to ask and
The answers that you are content to not know.
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Great Quotes and Sayings

To the young child, all life is a great adventure -
when did we grow so dull and brittle.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

If (s)he's an apple and you're an orange,
celebrate your differences -
make a great fruit salad.
Love isn't about being the same -
it's about being sweet with each other.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Having a personal opinion is great.
Believing that one's personal opinion is absolute truth
leads to most of the world's troubles.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Regrets and resentments cause great suffering but fix nothing.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The great end of life is not knowledge but action.
- Thomas Henry Huxley

Mostly, it is human to dislike surprises -
often with great intensity.
Be open to new ways;
sometimes newness just knocks on our door;
welcome it.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I have a great deal of company in the house,
especially in the morning when nobody calls.
- Henry David Thoreau

To be one, to be united is a great thing.
But to respect the right to be different is maybe even greater.
- Bono

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Today is Your Day to Dance Lightly with Life.  It Really Is.
      - Jonathan Lockwood Huie