Socrates (c.469–399 BCE) was the Greek philosopher considered the father of western philosophy. Socrates’ most famous student, Plato, taught Aristotle, who later tutored Alexander the Great. By this progression, Greek philosophy, as first developed by Socrates, spread throughout the known world during Alexander’s conquests.
Socrates, like his father, was a prominent stonemason before fighting in the Peloponnesian War. His father’s bequest was adequate for Socrates to live moderately in Athens without working.
Socrates’ focus as a philosopher was on living a good and virtuous life. He inspired his followers to think for themselves instead of following society’s prescriptions and the accepted superstitions regarding the gods. According to Plato, Socrates declared, “An unexamined life is not worth living” (Apology, 38b.)
Socrates gained a reputation as a questioner of everything and everyone. His method of teaching—celebrated as the Socratic Method—entailed not conveying knowledge directly, but instead asking question after clarifying question until his students reached their understanding by exposing and dispelling errors.
Socrates is a mystery, even amongst philosophers. He did not find a school or leave any writings. His reputation as one of history’s greatest philosophers was created by disciples such as Plato and Xenophon rather than through the efforts of Socrates himself. All known information about Socrates is second-hand, and most of it vigorously disputed.
Socrates’ habit of crushing influential figures in debate garnered him more enemies than followers. Socrates was convicted and sentenced to death for corrupting the Athenian youth by “denying the gods recognized by the state and introducing new divinities, and, secondly, of corrupting the young.” He died by drinking an executioner’s cup of poisonous hemlock, surrounded by his friends and disciples in his prison cell in Athens. Per Plato, “Such was the end of our friend, a man, I think, who was the wisest and justest, and the best man I have ever known” (Phaedo, pp. 118.)
Socrates’ influence was felt directly in the actions of his disciples as they formed their analysis of his life, teachings, and death. They launched their philosophical schools and wrote about their experiences with their teacher.
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Man, know thyself.
—Socrates
Topics: Self-Discovery
If you’re finding that work, relationships, and life in general don’t make you feel energized and hopeful about the future, that’s a good indication that you’ve probably lost touch with your real self and could use some insight into the person you’ve become. The soul, like the body, accepts by practice whatever habit one wishes it to contact.
—Socrates
Get married, in any case. If you happen to get a good mate, you will be happy; if a bad one, you will become philosophical, which is a fine thing in itself.
—Socrates
Topics: Philosophy
Be of good cheer about death, and know of a certainty, that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.
—Socrates
Topics: Death
The nearest way to glory is to strive to be what you wish to be thought to be.
—Socrates
The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.
—Socrates
Topics: Character, Wisdom, Reputation
Those who want the fewest things are nearest to the gods.
—Socrates
The warrior is here, now.
—Socrates
From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.
—Socrates
Topics: Hatred, Desire
Beware the banality of a busy life.
—Socrates
The greatest flood has soonest ebb; the sorest tempest, the most sudden calm; the hottest love, the coldest end; and from the deepest desire often ensues the deadliest hate.
—Socrates
The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world, is to be in reality what we would appear to be; and if we observe, we shall find, that all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice and experience of them.
—Socrates
Topics: Honesty, World, Character, Hypocrisy
If a man would move the world, he must first move himself.
—Socrates
I am not an Athenian or a Greek, I am a citizen of the world.
—Socrates
Topics: Race, Perspective, Racism
We are in fact convinced that if we are ever to have pure knowledge of anything, we must get rid of the body and contemplate things by themselves with the soul by itself. It seems, to judge from the argument, that the wisdom which we desire and upon which we profess to have set our hearts will be attainable only when we are dead and not in our lifetime.
—Socrates
Topics: Knowledge
I am not an Athenian, nor a Greek, but a citizen of the world.
—Socrates
Topics: Humanity
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
Topics: Revenge
I love to go and see all the things I am happy without.
—Socrates
Be of good hope in the face of death. Believe in this one truth for certain, that no evil can befall a good man either in life or death, and that his fate is not a matter of indifference to the gods.
—Socrates
By all means marry. If you get a good wife you will become happy, and if you get a bad one you will become a philosopher.
—Socrates
Topics: Society, Marriage
If I can assign names as well as pictures to objects, the right assignment of them we may call truth, and the wrong assignment of them falsehood.
—Socrates
Wisdom begins in wonder.
—Socrates
Topics: Wisdom
Nothing is to be preferred before justice.
—Socrates
Topics: Justice
I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your persons or your properties, but and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul. I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue comes money, and every other good of man, public as well as private. This is my teaching, and if this is the doctrine which corrupts the youth, I am a mischievous person.
—Socrates
Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior.
—Socrates
Topics: Feminism, Women
The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.
—Socrates
Topics: Thought, Good, Evil
Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm and constant.
—Socrates
Topics: Friendship
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