19 Socrates Quotes on Wisdom

Socrates quotes on wisdom

4. Oh dear Pan and all the other Gods of this place, grant that I may be beautiful inside. Let all my external possessions be in friendly harmony with what is within. May I consider the wise man rich. As for gold, let me have as much as a moderate man could bear and carry with him.

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.

7. And how is not this the most reprehensible ignorance, to think that one knows what one does not know? But I, O Athenians! in this, perhaps, differ from most men; and if I should say that I am in any thing wiser than another, it would be in this, that not having a competent knowledge of the things in Hades, I also think that I have not such knowledge.

10. I realized that it was not by wisdom that poets write their poetry, but by a kind of nature or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets; for these also say many beautiful things, but do not know anything of what they say.

21. I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.

28. As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.

35. By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.

52. I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.

67. Our prayers should be for blessings in general, for God knows best what is good for us.

68. Philosophy begins with wonder.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

72. See one promontory, one mountain, one sea, one river and see all.

74. The fear of death is indeed the pretense of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being a pretense of knowing the unknown . . . and no one knows whether death which men in their fear apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good. . . .

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

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

87. True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.

88. Upon the score of fore-knowledge and divining I am infinitely inferior to the swans. When they perceive approaching death they sing more merrily than before, because of the joy they have in going to the God they serve.

94. Wisdom begins in wonder.

95. Know thyself.

100. 'I would trade all of my technology for an afternoon with Socrates.'

     Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.