Laconic Lessons in Values, for Life & for Business from the Greatest Athenian
Quotes: (all by Socrates)
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
The unexamined life is not worth living.
There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.
I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think.
Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people.
To find yourself, think for yourself.
Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.
He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.
Be slow to fall into friendship, but when you are in, continue firm and constant.
If you don’t get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don’t want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can’t hold on to it forever. Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is law and no amount of pretending will alter that reality.
The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.
When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.
The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.
Do not do to others what angers you if done to you by others.
…although these people know nothing, they all believe they know something; whereas, I, if I know nothing, at least have no doubts about it.
Envy is the ulcer of the soul.
— Socrates