Socrates Quotes

On living on autopilot without questioning your choices:

The unexamined life is not worth living for a human being.

On fearing the consequences of doing the right thing:

No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death, and his fate is not a matter of indifference to the gods.

On abandoning a hard commitment when it gets risky:

Wherever a man has taken a position that he believes to be best, there he must stay and face danger, without thinking of death or anything else, only of disgrace.

On softening your beliefs to please an audience:

I would rather die having spoken after my manner, than speak in your manner and live.

Admitting you do not actually know enough to make the call you are being pushed toward:

I know that I know nothing.

Facing a frightening diagnosis without knowing how the story ends:

No one knows whether death, which people fear to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good.

On choosing safety over living with integrity:

It is not life, but a good life, which is to be chiefly valued.

On cutting off a friend who betrayed you out of spite:

One must never do wrong in return for wrong, nor injure any man, no matter what he has done to us.

On retaliating against someone who wronged you:

It is better to suffer wrong than to do wrong.

Choosing integrity over popularity in a public disagreement:

I would rather have my lyre or a chorus I directed be out of tune and loud with discord, and have the multitude disagree with me, than be out of harmony with myself and contradict myself.

On choosing what to study before committing to a path:

The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future life.

On telling a small lie to smooth things over:

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

On rushing the start of a new venture:

The beginning is the most important part of any work, especially in the case of a young and tender thing.

On judging someone who made a bad decision:

No man voluntarily pursues evil, or that which he thinks to be evil.

Preparing yourself for a loss you know is coming:

The true philosophers make dying their profession, and to them least of all men death is terrible.

Figuring out what you actually want from a relationship beyond the initial spark:

Love is the desire of the everlasting possession of the good.

Questioning whether a rule is right in itself or right just because an authority says so:

Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?