Socrates (1970 TV Movie)

Jean Sylvère: Socrate

Quotes 

• Socrate : If you had listened to me, for years I've been urging you to realize that there is but one good: knowledge. And there is but one evil: the presumption of knowledge.

• Socrate : It's a good thing to have ideas about the things we know. But you Athenians only have opinions, opinions on everything. You are proud, you are weak, you constantly talk about things you know nothing about or things you know poorly.

• Socrate : Let us respect all opinions, even if we disagree with them. What I care about is agreeing with myself and trying never to do the opposite of what I think.

• Socrate : What do I know that others don't? I know that I know nothing.

• Socrate : We pray to the gods for a favorable destiny. It would be better to pray for them to help us navigate towards the good, for their divine breath to fill our sails, so that we might feel the excitement of sailors at the sight of their goal.

• Socrate : The greatest happiness is to be just. It is such a great gift that those who commit evil deeds are insane.

• Socrate : In reality, the powerful wield their power to hide the fact they are weak. And their weakness comes from the fear that dominates them. They see themselves perpetually surrounded by enemies and is this not madness? For us, it will suffice simply to ignore them.

• Socrate : Man, in fact, can wish only for his own good. And he who is unjust harms first of all himself. Slowly, the memory of the crimes he has committed drive him crazy.

• Socrate : In order to survive, the states do not need arsenals or empires. If they possess but virtue, their citizens will die to defend them.

• Ifelides : How low we have sunk. I hate these tyrants with my entire soul.

  Socrate : You hate them, but you are prepared to obey them because you are afraid. I do not hate them, but I will not obey their orders. I am going home.

  Ifelides : But, that is insanity, Socrates.

  Socrate : Sometimes one must know when to be insane.

• Socrate : He who wishes to see the sun will burn his eyes, if he looks right at it. He must study it by looking at reflections in the water.

• Socrate : The soul becomes blind if it searches for truth in the details. It must take refuge in the world of reason.

• Socrate : I have learned to make do with the bare minimum. Because I am content with very little, I am always close to the gods.

• Socrate : To a rich and an dishonest man, the gods prefer a poor and virtuous.

• Socrate : Athens is my country. I proved it on the battlefield. But I still think that the earth is huge and that many other people are spread around the sea like frogs around a pond. Wisdom is not only Athenian or strength Spartan or prudence Corinthian. Other peoples possess these virtues. I am an Athenian, but also a man like all other men on earth.

• Socrate : Traditions make sense only insofar as we can evaluate their meaning. We must distrust custom. Chosen at random by custom, the leaders of our democracy, almost all of them ignorant men with a presumption of knowledge, are easy prey for any newcomer and are often guilty of being unjust. That is why we can measure, each day, the power of slander.

• Socrate : I think that death is a liberation. If I can't be certain while I inhabit my body, I think there are two options: Either knowledge is forbidden to me or I will gain it only in death, and you know how curious I am. Let me die, Aesculapius, surrounded by my friends, full of hope of finding in the hereafter the repose of knowledge.

• Socrate : So you know what beauty is?

  Hippias : Yes, of course.

  Socrate : Would you explain it to me?

  Hippias : That's easy! A beautiful virgin. Socrates, that's beauty.

  Socrate : A good answer. But tell me, Hippias, can we say that a beautiful mare is beautiful?

  Hippias : Yes. In my town, there are mares of great beauty.

  Socrate : And a beautiful pot, Hippias, is that a thing of beauty?

  Hippias : I don't understand, my dear Socrates, why you would use such a mundane object to discuss such lofty ideas.

  Socrate : What can I say? I'm just a boor. But you must admit that a beautiful pot is beautiful.

  Hippias : Yes, perhaps. But even the most beautiful of pots compared to a beautiful virgin is ugly.

  Socrate : Just as the most beautiful virgin is ugly when compared to a god. Isn't that what you're saying?

  Hippias : Exactly.

  Socrate : Yet, earlier you said, "A beautiful virgin. That's what beauty is." And now you're saying that compared to a god she is ugly. But she can't be beautiful and ugly at the same time. You still have not told me what beauty is.

  Hippias : I'll tell you some other time, whenever you want. Good-bye.

• Socrate : One might think that texts speak intelligently, but if you try to question them, they will merely repeat themselves. Text pass indifferently from one hand to another with no ability to distinguish between fools and wise men. And if these texts attack, if they unfairly accuse you, there is no way for you to make them change their mind.

• Socrate : Life is worth living, only in joy and man's only joy is the unswerving search of truth.

• Socrate : Life is worth living if one hopes one day to find the truth. And the truth, like the stars, is very hard to reach. From the plains as well as from the mountaintops we observe the stars without feeling that we have come any closer to them. The same goes for the truth. It is not necessary to get close to it to recognize it.

• Socrate : If our democracy wants my death, it must have its reasons.

• Socrate : Men fear death as if they had the certainty that it is the worst of all evils. On the contrary, it is perhaps the greatest of gifts and we would be wise to acknowledge our ignorance in the matter.

• Socrate : I love you, Athenians, but I will obey my own god before I obey you. And since it is he who orders me to do so, until I draw my last breath, I will not stop reasoning.

• Socrate : Exile? At my age? Travel to a foreign land? If my fellow citizens can't stand me, how could the foreigners?

• Socrate : Now it is time to go our separate ways. I shall die. You shall live. Which is the better destiny?

• Socrate : If I die, it is not the fault of the laws, but only that of men. And if I parry injustice with injustice and evil with evil, I am certain that I would be committing a sacrilege.

• Cebete : I fear, Socrates, the the soul once it leaves the body will also cease to live.

  Socrate : Tell me, Cebes, who gives life to the body?

  Cebete : The soul.

  Socrate : And is that always the case?

  Cebete : Undoubtably.

  Socrate : And the soul that gives life to the body is it always a giver of life?

  Cebete : Yes.

  Socrate : And does life have an opposite or is the opposite of life nothing?

  Cebete : Life has an opposite, which is death.

  Socrate : The soul therefore cannot receive death, which is the opposite of this life, of which it is the source. And what do we call those beings that escape death?

  Cebete : We call them immortals.

  Socrate : The soul, as it cannot receive death is therefore immortal. So it is not unreasonable to believe that this soul is immortal and, if it is, we must take care of it our entire lives.

• Socrate : If death were the end of everything, that would be very good for all evil men, because their evil would disappear with them. When faced with the sadness the injustice and the baseness of life, remember the passage in the 'Odyssey' in which Homer says that Ulysses, beating his chest, encouraged his heart with these words, "Bear it, O heart of mine, you have already borne much more revolting things."

• Socrate : Why are you crying? Don't you know that from the day of my birth, nature sentenced me to death?

• Socrate : [final line]  Don't forget.

• Socrate : It's true, I have a big stomach. I should start dancing to maintain my figure.

• Socrate : Why? Why did Alcibiades and Critias not cultivate reason? Why did they not silence themselves in order to hear the inspiration of the gods?

• Socrate : Medicine cures only the body and politics should watch over the soul. It should be not the art of domination, but the art of showing us what justice is.

• Socrate : I simply trust an inner voice of my own in the same way that you believe in omens borne by birds.

• Socrate : As for death, either it is truly an eternal slumber or it is the soul's sojourn in its eternal home. Whatever it is, I am without fear.

• Socrate : All the words I speak to you now spring spontaneously to my lips and there are no others I could say. I can feel them singing inside me like the sound of a flute and they are like Corybantes in their delirium, possessed by a celestial melody.

• Socrate : Go in peace, our friends are waiting for you. As for me, let me follow the path that god has shown me.

• Socrate : I drink to the gods, that they may watch over my journey.

• Socrate : Men slander the swan. But when they are dying, swans do not sing in despair, but because they are happy to meet the gods they serve.