Karthik > Karthik's Quotes

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
― Socrates

“Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.”
― Socrates

“To find yourself, think for yourself.”
― Socrates

“Be slow to fall into friendship, but when you are in, continue firm and constant.”
― Socrates

“The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.”
― Socrates

“Know thyself.”
― Socrates

“I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think”
― Socrates

“By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.”
― Socrates

“Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.”
― Socrates

“Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.”
― Socrates

“Every action has its pleasures and its price.”
― Socrates

“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.

We do not know — neither the sophists, nor the orators, nor the artists, nor I— what the True, the Good, and the Beautiful are. But there is this difference between us: although these people know nothing, they all believe they know something; whereas, I, if I know nothing, at least have no doubts about it. As a result, all this superiority in wisdom which the oracle has attributed to me reduces itself to the single point that I am strongly convinced that I am ignorant of what I do not know.”
― Socrates

“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.”
― Socrates

“I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world."

[As quoted in Plutarch's Of Banishment]”
― Socrates

“Do not do to others what angers you if done to you by others.”
― Socrates

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

“Prefer knowledge to wealth, for the one is transitory, the other perpetual.”
― Socrates

“Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty.”
― Socrates, Essential Thinkers - Socrates

“Thou shouldst eat to live; not live to eat.”
― Socrates

“When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.”
― Anonymous

“Envy is the ulcer of the soul.”
― Socrates

“Let him who would move the world first move himself.”
― Socrates

“We cannot live better than in seeking to become better.”
― Socrates

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

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

“Children nowadays are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannise their teachers.”
― Socrates

“Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions; but those who kindly reprove thy faults.”
― Socrates

“From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.”
― Socrates

“Beware the barrenness of a busy life.”
― Socrates

“If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be content to take their own and depart.”
― Socrates