Socrates

: This article is about the ancient Greek philosopher, for all other uses see: Socrates (disambiguation)

Quotations

The following quotations are attributed to Socrates in Plato's and Xenophon's writings:

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:The unexamined life is not worth living. (Apology, 38. In Greek, ho de anexetastos bios ou biôtos anthorôpôi).

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:For I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your persons or your properties, but first and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul. - Apology, by Plato. Translated by Benjamin Jowett.

Related Topics:
Apology - Benjamin Jowett

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:You, Antiphon, would seem to suggest that happiness consists of luxury and extravagance; I hold a different creed. To have no wants at all is, to my mind, an attribute of Godhead - Memorabilia, by Xenophon. Translated by H.G. Dakyns.

Related Topics:
Memorabilia - H.G. Dakyns

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:False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil. (Phaedo, 91)

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:So now, Athenian men, more than on my own behalf must I defend myself, as some may think, but on your behalf, so that you may not make a mistake concerning the gift of god by condemning me. For if you kill me, you will not easily find another such person at all, even if to say in a ludicrous way, attached on the city by the god, like on a large and well-bred horse, by its size and laziness both needing arousing by some gadfly; in this way the god seems to have fastened me on the city, some such one who arousing and persuading and reproaching each one of you I do not stop the whole day settling down all over. Thus such another will not easily come to you, men, but if you believe me, you will spare me; but perhaps you might possibly be offended, like the sleeping who are awakened, striking me, believing Anytus, you might easily kill, then the rest of your lives you might continue sleeping, unless the god caring for you should send you another. (Apology)

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:Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt? (Last words, according to the Phaedo — Asclepius was the god of medicine and healing, to whom such a sacrifice might be made upon the curing of a disease).

Related Topics:
Asclepius - Phaedo

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:Really, Ischomachus, I am disposed to ask: "Does teaching consist in putting questions?" Indeed, the secret of your system has just this instant dawned upon me. I seem to see the principle in which you put your questions. You lead me through the field of my own knowledge, and then by pointing out analogies to what I know, persuade me that I really know some things which hitherto, as I believed, I had no knowledge of. (Oeconomicus by Xenophon, translated: The Economist by H.G. Dakyns)

Related Topics:
Oeconomicus - Xenophon - H.G. Dakyns

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:Is the pious holy because it is loved by the gods, or is it loved by the gods because it is holy? (Eurythpro)

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:And I say that there will only be a perfect city when philosophers have become kings. (Republic)

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:And I went down to Pireus, to see the festival of the goddess... Opening words of the Republic. The phrase 'I went down' is important because it describes, in the parable of the cave, the duty of the philosopher.

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