Socrates Quotes

All I know is that I know nothing.

Public Key

npub1s0cra5735s8ccw7pfvqtp4see7t7lkfr0gwrfhkhsfakuxkf5ahs83023h

NIP-05 Address

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsg8up760g6gruv80q5kq9s6cvul9l0my3h58p5mmtcy7mwrty6wmcpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0ds7rhc5x

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub1s0cra5735s8ccw7pfvqtp4see7t7lkfr0gwrfhkhsfakuxkf5ahs83023h

Show more details

Last Notes

2025-09-30 07:21:02 UTC

"A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true."

2025-09-29 19:21:02 UTC

"In all of us, even in good men, there is a lawless wild-beast nature, which peers out in sleep."

2025-09-29 07:21:03 UTC

"From the deepest desires often comes the deadliest hate."

2025-09-28 19:21:03 UTC

"A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true."

2025-09-28 07:21:03 UTC

"A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true."

2025-09-27 19:21:03 UTC

"In all of us, even in good men, there is a lawless wild-beast nature, which peers out in sleep."

2025-09-27 07:21:02 UTC

"The highest realms of thought are impossible to reach without first attaining an understanding of compassion."

2025-09-26 19:21:02 UTC

"Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued."

2025-09-26 07:21:03 UTC

"He is rich who is content with the least; for contentment is the wealth of nature."

2025-09-25 19:21:02 UTC

"As to marriage or celibacy, let a man take which course he will, he will be sure to repent."

2025-09-25 07:21:02 UTC

"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 ... and that is a good thing for any man."

2025-09-24 19:21:02 UTC

"Such as thy words are such will thine affections be esteemed and such as thine affections will be thy deeds and such as thy deeds will be thy life ..."

2025-09-24 07:21:02 UTC

"All I know is that I know nothing."

2025-09-23 19:21:02 UTC

"Understanding a question is half an answer."

2025-09-23 07:21:02 UTC

"All I know is that I know nothing."

2025-09-22 19:21:02 UTC

"How can you wonder your travels do you no good, when you carry yourself around with you?"

2025-09-22 07:21:02 UTC

"Nobody is qualified to become a statesman who is entirely ignorant of the problem of wheat."

2025-09-21 19:21:02 UTC

"The great honor in the world is to be what we pretend to be."

2025-09-21 07:21:02 UTC

"We cannot live better than in seeking to become better."

2025-09-20 19:21:02 UTC

"We approach truth only inasmuch as we depart from life. For what do we, who love truth, strive after in life? To free ourselves from the body, and from all the evil that is caused by the life of the body! If so, then how can we fail to be glad when death comes to us? The wise man seeks death all his life and therefore death is not terrible to him."

2025-09-20 07:21:02 UTC

"To be is to do."

2025-09-19 19:21:02 UTC

"Every action has its pleasures and its price."

2025-09-19 07:21:02 UTC

"Be nicer than necessary to everyone you meet. Everyone is fighting some kind of battle."

2025-09-18 19:21:01 UTC

"And now we go, you to your lives, and I to death, and which of us goes to the better only God knows."

2025-09-18 07:21:02 UTC

"Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued."

2025-09-17 19:21:02 UTC

"Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers."

2025-09-17 07:21:02 UTC

"How many things can I do without?"

2025-09-16 19:21:02 UTC

"Now the hour to part has come. I go to die, you go to live. Which of us goes to the better lot is known to no one, except the god."

2025-09-16 07:21:12 UTC

"Wealth does not bring about excellence, but excellence makes wealth and everything else good for men, both individually and collectively."

2025-09-15 19:21:02 UTC

"Be nicer than necessary to everyone you meet. Everyone is fighting some kind of battle."

2025-09-15 07:21:03 UTC

"I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy, exhorting anyone whom I meet after my manner, and convincing him, saying: O my friend, why do you who are a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of Athens, care so much about laying up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation, and so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all? Are you not ashamed of this?"

2025-09-14 19:21:02 UTC

"An unconsidered life is not one worth living."

2025-09-14 07:21:02 UTC

"Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity."

2025-09-13 19:21:03 UTC

"He who is not contended with what he has would not be contended with what he would like to have."

2025-09-12 19:21:03 UTC

"The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our separate ways, me to die, and you to live. Which of these two is better? Only God knows."

2025-09-12 07:21:02 UTC

"We cannot live better than in seeking to become better."

2025-09-11 19:21:02 UTC

"In all of us, even in good men, there is a lawless wild-beast nature, which peers out in sleep."

2025-09-11 07:21:02 UTC

"God takes away the minds of poets, and uses them as his ministers, as he also uses diviners and holy prophets, in order that we who hear them may know them to be speaking not of themselves who utter these priceless words in a state of unconsciousness, but that God himself is the speaker, and that through them he is conversing with us."

2025-09-10 07:21:02 UTC

"Those who are hardest to love need it the most."

2025-09-09 19:21:02 UTC

"Man's greatest privilege is the discussion of virtue."

2025-09-09 07:21:03 UTC

"A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true."

2025-09-08 19:21:02 UTC

"Beloved Pan and all other gods, who haunt this place, give me beauty in the inward soul, and may the outward and the inner man be at one."

2025-09-08 07:21:47 UTC

"The answer I gave myself and the oracle was that it was to my advantage to be as I am."

2025-09-07 19:21:02 UTC

"For the poet is a light and winged and holy thing, and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his senses, and the mind is no longer in him: when he has not attained to this state, he is powerless and is unable to utter his oracles."

2025-09-07 07:21:02 UTC

"I neither know nor think that I know"

2025-09-06 19:21:02 UTC

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

2025-09-06 07:21:04 UTC

"Esteemed friend, citizen of Athens, the greatest city in the world, so outstanding in both intelligence and power, aren't you ashamed to care so much to make all the money you can, and to advance your reputation and prestige--while for truth and wisdom and the improvement of your soul you have no care or worry?"

2025-09-05 19:21:04 UTC

"In all of us, even in good men, there is a lawless wild-beast nature, which peers out in sleep."

2025-09-05 07:21:02 UTC

"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..."

2025-09-04 19:21:02 UTC

"The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms."

2025-09-04 07:21:02 UTC

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

2025-09-03 19:21:02 UTC

"Is it true; is it kind, or is it necessary?"

2025-09-03 07:21:03 UTC

"I examined the poets, and I look on them as people whose talent overawes both themselves and others, people who present themselves as wise men and are taken as such, when they are nothing of the sort. From poets, I moved to artists. No one was more ignorant about the arts than I; no one was more convinced that artists possessed really beautiful secrets. However, I noticed that their condition was no better than that of the poets and that both of them have the same misconceptions. Because the most skillful among them excel in their specialty, they look upon themselves as the wisest of men. In my eyes, this presumption completely tarnished their knowledge. As a result, putting myself in the place of the oracle and asking myself what I would prefer to be — what I was or what they were, to know what they have learned or to know that I know nothing — I replied to myself and to the god: I wish to remain who I am."

2025-09-02 19:21:02 UTC

"My advice to you is getting married: if you find a good wife you'll be happy; if not, you'll become a philosopher."

2025-09-02 07:21:02 UTC

"The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new."

2025-09-01 19:21:04 UTC

2025-09-01 07:21:02 UTC

"Nobody is qualified to become a statesman who is entirely ignorant of the problem of wheat."

2025-08-31 19:21:02 UTC

"Human nature will not easily find a better helper than Eros."

2025-08-31 07:21:05 UTC

"The misuse of language induces evil in the soul"

2025-08-30 19:21:03 UTC

"I neither know nor think that I know"

2025-08-30 07:21:02 UTC

"Is there not one true coin for which all things ought to exchange?- and that is wisdom; and only in exchange for this, and in company with this, is anything truly bought or sold, whether courage, temperance or justice. And is not all true virtue the companion of wisdom, no matter what fears or pleasures or other similar goods or evils may or may not attend her? But the virtue which is made up of these goods, when they are severed from wisdom and exchanged with one another, is a shadow of virtue only, nor is there any freedom or health or truth in her; but in the true exchange there is a purging away of all these things, and temperance, and justice, and courage, and wisdom herself, are a purgation of them."

2025-08-29 19:21:03 UTC

2025-08-29 07:21:02 UTC

"Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people."

2025-08-28 19:21:02 UTC

"To be is to do."

2025-08-28 07:21:02 UTC

"Neither in war nor yet at law ought any man to use every way of escaping death. For often in battle there is no doubt that if a man will throw away his arms, and fall on his knees before his pursuers, he may escape death; and in other dangers there are other ways of escaping death, if a man is willing to say and do anything. The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death."

2025-08-27 19:21:02 UTC

"To be is to do."

2025-08-27 07:21:03 UTC

"Be nicer than necessary to everyone you meet. Everyone is fighting some kind of battle."

2025-08-26 19:21:02 UTC

"Virtue does not come from wealth, but ... wealth, and every other good thing which men have comes from virtue."

2025-08-26 07:21:02 UTC

"As for me, all I know is that I know nothing, for when I don't know what justice is, I'll hardly know whether it is a kind of virtue or not, or whether a person who has it is happy or unhappy."

2025-08-25 19:21:02 UTC

"He who is not contended with what he has would not be contended with what he would like to have."

2025-08-25 07:21:03 UTC

"I know you won't believe me, but the highest form of Human Excellence is to question oneself and others."

2025-08-24 19:21:03 UTC

"Every action has its pleasures and its price."

2025-08-24 07:21:03 UTC

"Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior."

2025-08-23 19:21:02 UTC

"The answer I gave myself and the oracle was that it was to my advantage to be as I am."

2025-08-23 07:21:02 UTC

"Be of good cheer about death, and know this of a truth, that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death."

2025-08-22 19:21:02 UTC

"And a thing is not seen because it is visible, but; conversely, visible because it is seen; nor is a thing led because; it is in the state of being led, or carried because it is in the; state of being carried, but the converse of this. And now I think, Euthyphro, that my meaning will be intelligible; and my; meaning is, that any state of action or passion implies previous; action or passion. It does not become because it is becoming, but it is in a state of becoming because it becomes; neither; does it suffer because it is in a state of suffering, but it is in a; state of suffering because it suffers. Do you not agree?"

2025-08-22 07:21:02 UTC

"Give me beauty in the inward soul; may the outward and the inward man be at one."

2025-08-21 19:21:02 UTC

"I thought that as I had failed in the contemplation of true existence, I ought to be careful that I did not lose the eye of my soul; as people may injure their bodily eye by observing and gazing on the sun during an eclipse, unless they take the precaution of looking at the image reflected in the water, or in some similar medium. ...I was afraid that my soul might be blinded altogether if I looked at things with my eyes or tried by the help of my senses to apprehend them. And I thought that I had better had recourse to ideas, and seek in them truth in existence. I dare to say that the simile is not perfect--for I am far from admitting that he who contemplates existence through the medium of ideas, sees them only "through a glass darkly," any more than he who sees them in their working and effects."

2025-08-21 07:21:02 UTC

"The misuse of language induces evil in the soul"

2025-08-20 07:21:02 UTC

2025-08-19 19:21:02 UTC

"Be slow to fall into friendship, but when you are in, continue firm and constant."

2025-08-19 07:21:03 UTC

"I know you won't believe me, but the highest form of Human Excellence is to question oneself and others."

2025-08-18 19:21:03 UTC

"May the inward and outward man be as one."

2025-08-18 07:21:02 UTC

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."

2025-08-17 19:21:02 UTC

"My plainness of speech makes them hate me, and what is their hatred but a proof that I am speaking the truth."

2025-08-17 07:21:02 UTC

"I do believe that there are gods, and in a far higher sense than that in which any of my accusers believe in them."

2025-08-16 19:21:02 UTC

"Be slow to fall into friendship, but when you are in, continue firm and constant."

2025-08-16 07:21:03 UTC

"If you want to be a good saddler, saddle the worst horse; for if you can tame one, you can tame all."

2025-08-15 19:21:03 UTC

2025-08-15 07:21:02 UTC

2025-08-14 19:21:03 UTC

"From the deepest desires often comes the deadliest hate."

2025-08-14 07:21:03 UTC

"Be nicer than necessary to everyone you meet. Everyone is fighting some kind of battle."

2025-08-13 19:21:02 UTC

"The hottest love has the coldest end."

2025-08-13 07:21:02 UTC

"Be as you wish to seem."

2025-08-12 19:21:02 UTC

"Human nature will not easily find a better helper than Eros"

2025-08-12 07:21:03 UTC

"He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god."

2025-08-11 19:21:03 UTC

"It is better to change an opinion than to persist in a wrong one."

2025-08-11 07:21:02 UTC

"In all of us, even in good men, there is a lawless wild-beast nature, which peers out in sleep."

2025-08-10 19:21:03 UTC

"I neither know nor think that I know"

2025-08-10 07:21:02 UTC

"He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god."