Socrates

(470 B.C. – 399 B.C.)

Socrates left no writings of his own; the following quotes are from the character of Socrates in Plato's writing.

• The life which is unexamined is not worth living. — Apology, 38
• False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil. — Phaedo, 91
• 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.
• Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt? — Last words
• Not I, but the city, teaches.
• All I know is that I know nothing.
• Wisdom is knowing how little we know.
• Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel. — (Hem.,1 /97, p.96)
• Could I climb to the highest place in Athens, I would lift my voice and proclaim, "Fellow citizens, why do you turn and scrape every stone to gather wealth, and take so little care of your children to whom one day you must relinquish it all?"
• Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers.--attributed

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