The Path of The Philosopher - Socrates Quotes

They who have a care for their souls, and do not merely live in the fashions of the body, say farewell to all this. They will not walk in the ways of the blind, and when philosophy offers them purification and release from evil, they feel that they ought not resist her influence, and to her they incline, and with her she leads, they follow her. 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 onto 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 a law, and no amount of pretending will alter that reality. I desire only to know the truth, and to live as well as I can, and, to the utmost of my power, I exhort all other men to do the same. I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict. The inexperienced in wisdom and virtue, ever occupied with feasting and such, are carried downward, and there, as is fitting, they wander their whole life long, neither ever looking upward towards the truth above them, nor rising toward it, nor tasting pure and lasting pleasures, like cattle, always looking downward with their heads bent towards the ground and the banquet tables, they feed, fatten, and fornicate. In order to increase their possessions, they kick and butt, with horns and hooves of steel they kill each other, insatiable as they are. It would be better for me that the multitudes of men should disagree with me, rather than that I, being one, should be out of harmony with myself. In every one of us there are two ruling directing principles, whose guidance we follow wherever they may lead, the one being an innate desire of pleasure, the other an acquired judgment which aspires after excellence. And so they grow richer and richer, and the more they think of making a fortune, the less they think of virtue, for when riches and virtue are placed together in the scales of the balance, the one always rises as the other falls. 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? Anyone who holds a true opinion without understanding it, is like a blind man on the right road. I honour and love you, but why do you who are citizens of the great and mighty nation, care so much about laying up the greatest amount of money and honour and reputation, and so little about wisdom and truth, and the greatest improvement of the soul? Are you not ashamed of these? 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, public as well as private. This is my teaching, and if this is the doctrine which corrupts the youth, I am a mischievous person. There is only one good, knowledge, and evil, ignorance. False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil. I did not care for the things that most people care about, making money, having a comfortable home, high military or civil rank, and all other activities, political appointments, secret societies, party organizations which go on in our city. I set myself to do you, each one of you individually and in private, what I hold to be the greatest possible service. I try 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. Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat that they may live. If the head and body are to be well, you must begin by curing the soul, that is the first and essential thing. And the care of the soul, my dear youth, has to be affected by the use of certain charms, and these charms are fair words, and by them temperance is implanted in the soul, and where temperance comes and stays, there health is speedily imparted, not only to the head, but to the whole body. Understanding a question is half an answer. When my sons are grown up, I would ask you my friends to punish them, and I would have you trouble them, as I have troubled you. If they seem to care about rituals, or anything more than about virtue, or if they pretend to be something, when they are really nothing, then reprove them, as I have reproved you, for not caring about that for which they ought to care, and thinking that they are something when they are really nothing. And if you do this, I and my sons will have received justice at your hands. I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think. No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable. Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty. I decided that it is not wisdom that enables poets to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.