70+ Great Quotes by Socrates part 1 of 6 | Greek philosopher | Life and Happiness

Socrates (/ˈsɒkrətiːz/; Ancient Greek: Σωκρᾰ́της Sōkrátēs [sɔːkrátɛːs]; c. 470 – 399 BC) was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, and as being the first moral philosopher of the Western ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, he made no writings, and is known chiefly through the accounts of classical writers writing after his lifetime, particularly his students Plato and Xenophon.

Socrates exerted a strong influence on philosophers in later antiquity and in the modern era. Depictions of Socrates in art, literature and popular culture have made him one of the most widely known figures in the Western philosophical tradition.

Socrates's Quotes:

1. “Life is full of questions. Idiots are full of answers.”


2. “Life contains but two tragedies. One is not to get your heart’s desire; the other is to get it.”


3. “When I was young, I believed that life might unfold in an orderly way, according to my hopes and expectations. But now I understand that the Way winds like a river, always changing, ever onward... My journeys revealed that the Way itself creates the warrior; that every path leads to peace, every choice to wisdom. And that life has always been, and will always be, arising in Mystery.”


4. “The comic and the tragic lie inseparably close, like light and shadow.”


5. “Do not go through life like leaf blown from here to there believing whatever you are told.”


6. “Sometimes you have to let go to see if there was anything worth holding onto.”


7. “The unexamined life is not worth living.”


8. “He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.”


9. “The really important thing is not to live, but to live well. And to live well meant, along with more enjoyable things in life, to live according to your principles.”


10. “He is richest who is content with the least, for contentment is the wealth of nature.”


11. “The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.”

Prev || Next

70+ Great Quotes by Socrates:

part 1 of 6: Life and Happiness

part 2 of 6: Wisdom

part 3 of 6: Ethics

part 4 of 6: Motivation

part 5 of 6: Self Knowledge

part 6 of 6: Life Lessons