A system of morality that is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception that has nothing sound in it and nothing true.
SocratesRead
Man's life is like a drop of dew on a leaf.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Life is fleeting and fragile, much like a drop of dew.
In this quote, Socrates uses the imagery of a drop of dew, which is transient and vulnerable, to illustrate the brevity and delicacy of human existence. It serves as a reminder that life can be both beautiful and fragile, and encourages us to cherish the moments we have, as they can vanish quickly and unexpectedly.
Themes
LifeFragilityTransienceExistenceImpermanence
In practice
Example use cases
During a graduation speech, one might say this quote to remind graduates to value each moment.
More from Socrates
All quotes βThe poets are only the interpreters of the gods.
SocratesRead
I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know.
SocratesRead
The unexamined life is not worth living.
SocratesRead
When I was young, I believed that life might unfold in an orderly way, according to my hopes and expectations. But now I understand that the Way winds like a river, always changing, ever onward.. My journeys revealed that the Way itself creates the warrior; that every path leads to peace, every choice to wisdom. And that life has always been, and will always be, arising in Mystery.
SocratesRead
Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued." "It is not living that matters, but living rightly. The unexamined life is not worth living.
SocratesRead
Similar quotes
When I dance, I dance; when I sleep, I sleep; yes, and when I walk alone in a beautiful orchard, if my thoughts drift to far-off matters for some part of the time for some other part I lead them back again to the walk, the orchard, to the sweetness of this solitude, to myself.
Michel De MontaigneRead
Ours is a multi-religious country, a multi-lingual country; we have many different modes of worship. We believe in peaceful and harmonious co-existence.
Atal Bihari VajpayeeRead
For every bourgeois, in the heat of youth, if only for a day, for a minute, has believed himself capable of immense passions, of heroic enterprises. The most mediocre libertine has dreamed of oriental princesses; every rotary carries about inside him the debris of a poet.
Gustave FlaubertRead
The fundamental factor of self-deception is this constant desire to be something in this world and in the world hereafter.
Jiddu KrishnamurtiRead
Let us not envy some men their accumulated riches; their burden would be too heavy for us; we could not sacrifice, as they do, health, quiet, honor and conscience, to obtain them: It is to pay so dear from them that the bargain is a loss.
Jean De La BruyereRead
It was my view then, and still is, that you don't make war without knowing why. Knowledge of course, is always imperfect, but it seemed to me that when a nation goes to war it must have reasonable confidence in the justice and imperative of its cause. You can't fix your mistakes. Once people are dead, you can't make them undead.
Tim O'BrienRead