Comments & Greek painters, modern Greek artists: A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion...

Philosophic quotes & Greek artists, modern Greek painters


Yannis Stavrou, Pines in Attica, oil on canvas

In times of decline, the classic quotations are the most suitable...

Socrates
(Ancient Greek philosopher, 469-399 BC)

• 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.
• All men's souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine.
• An honest man is always a child.
• As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.
• As to marriage or celibacy, let a man take which course he will, he will be sure to repent.
• Be as you wish to seem.
• Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm and constant.
• Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.
• Beauty is the bait which with delight allures man to enlarge his kind.
• Beware the barrenness of a busy life.
• 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.
• Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.
• Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.
• False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.
• From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.
• He is a man of courage who does not run away, but remains at his post and fights against the enemy.
• He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.
• I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.
• I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled 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.
• I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.
• I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm; then they might have an unlimited power for doing good.
• I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.
• If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it.
• If all misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart.
• It is not living that matters, but living rightly.
• Let him that would move the world first move himself.
• My advice to you is get married: if you find a good wife you'll be happy; if not, you'll become a philosopher.
• Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.
• Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior.
• 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.
• Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death.
• Our prayers should be for blessings in general, for God knows best what is good for us.
• The end of life is to be like God, and the soul following God will be like Him.
• The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.
• The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
• The poets are only the interpreters of the Gods.
• The unexamined life is not worth living.
• The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.
• To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.