Sokrates cytaty

strona 5

„Najmądrzejszy jest, który wie, czego nie wie.”

„Nigdy nie zestarzeje się serce, które kocha.”

„Takie czasy nastały, że jak chcesz z kim mądrym pogadać, musisz rozmawiać sam ze sobą.”

„Szczęście jest przyjemnością wolną od wyrzutów sumienia.”

„Długie szaty krępują ciało, a bogactwo – duszę.”

„Wszelka dusza jest nieśmiertelna.”

„Jeśli ktoś z nas pragnie poznać coś w sposób czysty, musi się od ciała wyzwolić i samą tylko duszą oglądać rzeczywistość.”

„Głód jest najlepszym kucharzem.”

„Piękno jest jedyną rzeczą boską i widzialną jednocześnie.”

„Weź tyle, ile potrzebujesz, daj tyle, ile możesz.”

„Strzeż się ludzi, którzy są pewni tego, że mają rację.”

„Puste worki nadyma wiatr, bezmyślnych ludzi – próżność.”

„Wiem, że nic nie wiem.”

„Człowiek nie jest nigdy zły dobrowolnie.”

„Tyle tu rzeczy, których mi nie potrzeba!”

„Jeżeli język nie jest poprawny, to, co powiedziano, nie jest tym, co zamierzano powiedzieć. Jeżeli to, co powiedziano, nie jest tym, co zamierzano powiedzieć, nie zostanie zrobione to, co być powinno.”

„Tam, gdzie chodzi o to, co sprawiedliwe, piękne i dobre nie powinniśmy troszczyć się o opinie ogółu.”

„Ci, których najtrudniej jest kochać, potrzebują tego najbardziej.”

„W całym życiu szanuj prawdę tak, by twoje słowa były bardziej wiarygodne od przyrzeczeń innych.”

„Pragnie się tego, czego się nie ma, nie można przecież czegoś chcieć, kiedy się już to ma – skoro więc filozof pragnie mądrości, to nie może być mądry.”

„Kritonie, myśmy winni koguta Asklepiosowi. Oddajcież go, a nie zapomnijcie!”

„Jeśli znajdziesz dobrą żonę, będziesz szczęśliwy, jeśli złą – zostaniesz filozofem.”

„Tymczasem ja ani przedtem nie uważałem za stosowne robić niczego podłego z uwagi na niebezpieczeństwo, ani mi teraz żal, żem się w ten sposób bronił; wolę zginąć po takiej obronie, niż tamtym sposobem żyć.”

„Jak większe jest szczęście być zdrowym niż bogatym, tak mniejszym jest nieszczęściem ubóstwo niż choroba.”

„Błąd jest przywilejem filozofów, tylko głupcy nie mylą się nigdy.”

„A złota obym miał tyle, ile ani unieść, ani uciągnąć nie potrafi nikt inny, tylko ten, co zna miarę we wszystkim.”

„Wszystko w miarę.”

„Dla cierpiących najmniejsza radość jest szczęściem.”

„Wolałabyś [Ksantypo], żebym umierał z wyroku sprawiedliwego?”

„Nieprawdaż, że czasem, kiedy wiatr wieje jeden i ten sam, to jeden z nas marznie, a drugi nie? I jeden marznie lekko, a drugi mocno?”

„Ateny są jak ospały koń, a ja jak giez, który próbuje go ożywić.”

„Poznaj samego siebie.”

„Niezbadane życie nie jest warte życia.”

„Zimą potrzebne jest ciepłe okrycie, w starości - brak zmartwień.”

„Nie może człowiek poddawać się i ulegać pragnieniom i pożądaniom ciała, ale zawsze należy postępować zgodnie z rozumem, który jest najlepszym doradcą.”

„Kto będzie miał dobrą żonę, ten będzie szczęśliwy, kto będzie miał złą, zostanie filozofem.”

„Nikogo i niczego nie umiem słuchać jak tylko argumentu, który mi się po rozwadze wyda najstosowniejszy.”

„Drzewa na wsi niczego mnie nie nauczą.”

„Wypoczynek to największe z dóbr.”

„Bóg z maszyny (teatralnej).”

„Bać się śmierci jest tym samym, co mieć się za mądrego, nim nie będąc.”

„Nie nauczą mnie niczego kwiatki, czy drzewa, lecz tylko drugi człowiek.”

„Sprawiedliwość jest odmianą mądrości.”

„Znajdujesz to, czego szukasz, umyka ci to, co zaniedbujesz.”

„Człowiek nie żyje, aby jadł, ale je, aby żył.”

“Contentment is natural wealth; luxury, artificial poverty.”

“I do not mean to affirm that the description which I have given of the soul and her missions is exactly true—a man of sense ought hardly say that. But I do say that, inasmuch as the soul is shown to be immortal, he may venture to think, not improperly or unworthily, that something of this kind is true.”

“And will he who is a true lover of wisdom, and is persuaded in like manner that only in the world below can he worthily enjoy her, still repine at death? Will he not depart with joy? Surely he will, my friend, if he be a true philosopher. …And if this be true, he would be very absurd, …if he were to fear death.”

“Often when looking at a mass of things for sale, he would say to himself, "How many things I have no need of!"”

“Will you not allow that I have as much of the spirit of prophecy in me as the swans? For they, when they perceive that they must die, having sung all their life long, do then sing more than ever, rejoicing in the thought that they are about to go away to the god whose ministers they are.”

“How singular is the thing called pleasure, and how curiously related to pain, which might be thought to be the opposite of it; for they never come to a man together, and yet he who pursues either of them is generally compelled to take the other. They are two, and yet they grow together out of one head or stem.”

“The soul, being a harmony, can never utter a note at variance with the tensions and relaxations and vibrations and other affections of the strings out of which she is composed; she can only follow, she cannot lead them? …And yet do we not now discover the soul to be doing the exact opposite—leading the elements of which she is believed to be composed; almost always opposing and coercing them in all sorts of ways throughout life… threatening and reprimanding the desires, passions, fears, as if talking to a thing which is not herself…”

“Either I do not corrupt them, or I corrupt them unintentionally, so that on either view of the case you lie. If my offense is unintentional, the law has no cognizance of unintentional offenses; you ought to have taken me privately, and warned and admonished me; for if I had been better advised, I should have left off doing what I only did unintentionally — no doubt I should; whereas you hated to converse with me or teach me, but you indicted me in this court, which is the place not of instruction, but of punishment.”

“Now answer me this. Do you think that the same holds of horses? Do people in general improve them, whereas one particular person corrupts them or makes them worse? Or is it wholly the opposite: one particular person - or the very few who are horse trainers - is able to improve them, whereas the majority of people, if they have to do with horses and make use of them, make them worse? Isn't that true, Meletus, both of horses and of all other animals? Of course it is, whether you and Anytus say so or not. Indeed, our young people are surely in a very happy situation if only one person corrupts them, whereas all the rest benefit them.”

“I have said enough in answer to the charge of Meletus: any elaborate defense is unnecessary; but as I was saying before, I certainly have many enemies, and this is what will be my destruction if I am destroyed; of that I am certain; not Meletus, nor yet Anytus, but the envy and detraction of the world, which has been the death of many a good men, and will probably be the death of many more; there is no danger of my being the last of them.”

“If the immortal is also imperishable, the soul when attacked by death cannot perish; for the preceding argument shows that the soul will not admit of death, or even be dead, any more than three or the odd number will admit of the even…”

“It is a disgrace to grow old through sheer carelessness before seeing what manner of man you may become by developing your bodily strength and beauty to their highest limit. But you cannot see that, if you are careless; for it will not come of its own accord.”

“I did not go where I could do no good to you or to myself; but where I could do the greatest good privately to everyone of you, thither I went, and sought to persuade every man among you that he must look to himself, and seek virtue and wisdom before he looks to his private interests, and look to the State before he looks to the interests of the State; and that this should be the order which he observes in all his actions. What shall be done to such a one? Doubtless some good thing…”

“I set to do you—each one of you, individually and in private—what I hold to be the greatest possible service. I tried to persuade each one of you to concern himself less with what he has than with what he is, so as to render himself as excellent and rational as possible.”

“In the course of my life I have often had intimations in dreams "that I should make music." The same dream came to me sometimes in one form, and sometimes in another, but always saying the same or nearly the same words: Make and cultivate music, said the dream. And hitherto I imagined that this was only intended to exhort and encourage me in the study of philosophy, which has always been the pursuit of my life, and is the noblest and best of music.”

“Absolute greatness will never be great and also small, but that greatness in us or in the concrete will never admit the small or admit of even being exceeded; instead of this, one of two things will happen—either the greater will fly and retire before the opposite, which is the less, or the advance of the less will cease to exist; but will not, if allowing or admitting smallness, be changed by that…nor can any other opposite which remains the same ever be or become its own opposite, but either passes away or perishes in the change.”

“Whence come wars, and fighting, and factions? whence but from the body and the lusts of the body? For wars are occasioned by the love of money, and money has to be acquired for the sake and in service of the body; and in consequence of all these things, the time which ought to be given to philosophy is lost.”

“We admitted that everything living is born of the dead. For if the soul existed before birth, and in coming to life and being born can be born only from death and dying, must she not after death continue to exist, since she has to be born again?”

“I only wish that wisdom were the kind of thing that flowed … from the vessel that was full to the one that was empty.”

“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”

“If somebody asks them, Why, what evil does he practice or teach? they do not know, and cannot tell; but in order that they do not appear to be at a loss, they repeat the ready-made charges which are used against all philosophers about teaching things up in the clouds and under the earth, and having no gods, and making the worse appear the better cause; for they do not like to confess that their pretense of knowledge has been detected — which is the truth…”

“And are not the temperate exactly in the same case? They are temperate because they are intemperate—which may seem to be a contradiction, but is nevertheless the sort of thing which happens with this foolish temperance. For there are pleasures which they must have, and are afraid of losing; and therefore they abstain from one class of pleasures because they are overcome by another: and whereas intemperance is defined as "being under the domination of pleasure," they overcome only because they are overcome by pleasure.”

“And I rejoiced to think that I has found in Anaxagoras a teacher of the causes of existence such as I desired, and I imagined that he would tell me first whether the earth is flat or round; and then he would further explain that this position was the best, and I should be satisfied… and not want any other sort of cause. And I thought that I would then go and ask him about the sun and moon and stars, and he would explain to me their comparative swiftness, and their returnings and various states, and how their several affections, active and passive, were all for the best. For I could not imagine that when he spoke of mind as the disposer of them, he would give any other account of their being as they are, except that this was best; and I thought when he had explained to me in detail the cause of each and the cause of all, he would go on to explain to me what was best for me and what was best for all. …I seized the books and read them as fast as I could in my eagerness to know the better and the worse.”

“The exchange of one fear or pleasure or pain for another fear or pleasure or pain, which are measured like coins, the greater with the less, is not the exchange of virtue. O, my dear Simmias, 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 or temperance or justice. …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.”

“When does the soul obtain truth?—for in attempting to consider anything in company with the body she is obviously deceived. …Then must not existence be revealed to her in thought, if at all? …And thought is best when the mind is gathered into herself and none of these things trouble her—neither sounds nor sights nor pain nor any pleasure—when she has as little as possible to do with the body, and has no bodily sense or feeling, but is aspiring after being? …And in this the philosopher dishonors the body; his soul runs away from the body and desires to be alone and by herself?”

“Crito, Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius. Pay it and do not neglect it.”

“Crito, Crito, we owe a cock to Aesculapius. Pay it and do not neglect it.”

“My real opinion is, that as a return for what has been done by me, I deserve a maintenance in the Prytaneum for the rest of my life.”

“and as they, when they have once mastered them, are easily able to manage all others; so I, after managing Xanthippe, can easily live with anyone else whatever.”