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Politics
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I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.
-Socrates
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Potential
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I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm; then they might have an unlimited power for doing good.
-Socrates
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Prayer
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Our prayers should be for blessings in general, for God knows best what is good for us.
-Socrates
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Property
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How many are the things I can do without!
-Socrates
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Purpose
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They are not only idle who do nothing, but they are idle also who might be better employed.
-Socrates
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Reading
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A multitude of books distracts the mind.
-Socrates
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Reflection
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I must first know myself, as the Delphian inscription says; to be curious about that which is not my concern, while I am still in ignorance of my own self, would be ridiculous. And therefore I bid farewell to all this; the common opinion is enough for me. For, as I was saying, I want to know not about this, but about myself: am I a monster more complicated and swollen with passion than the serpent Typho, or a creature of a gentler and simpler sort, to whom Nature has given a diviner and lowlier destiny?
-Socrates, Plato
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The unexamined life is not worth living.
-Socrates
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Reform, Correction
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Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions, but those who kindly reprove thy faults.
-Socrates
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Reputation
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The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.
-Socrates
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Respect
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Where there is reverence there is fear, but there is not reverence everywhere that there is fear, because fear presumably has a wider extension than reverence.
-Socrates
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Revenge
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One who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice; and it is not right to return an injury, or to do evil to any man, however much we have suffered from him.
-Socrates
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Senses
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I was afraid that by observing objects with my eyes and trying to comprehend them with each of my other senses I might blind my soul altogether.
-Socrates
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Teaching
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I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.
-Socrates
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Thought
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To find yourself, think for yourself.
-Socrates
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Truth
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Whenever, therefore, people are deceived and form opinions wide of the truth, it is clear that the error has slid into their minds through the medium of certain resemblances to that truth.
-Socrates
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Do not be angry with me if I tell you the truth
-Socrates
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Wealth
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What a lot of things there are a man can do without.
-Socrates
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If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it.
-Socrates
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He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.
-Socrates
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Wisdom
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Wisdom begins in wonder.
-Socrates
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The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms.
-Socrates
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True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.
-Socrates
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Well I am certainly wiser than this man. It is only too likely that neither of us has any knowledge to boast of; but he thinks that he knows something which he does not know, whereas I am quite conscious of my ignorance. At any rate it seems that I am wiser than he is to this small extent, that I do not think that I know what I do not know.
-Socrates
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The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
-Socrates
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Books by and about Socrates