11 Socrates Quotes on Learning

Socrates quotes on learning

6. When I left him, I reasoned thus with myself: I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know.

18. 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.

24. There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.

26. An education obtained with money is worse than no education at all.

41. Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.

42. Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.

53. I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.

68. Philosophy begins with wonder.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

78. The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.

86. True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.

94. Wisdom begins in wonder.