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
One who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Revenge only perpetuates injustice and does not solve the issue.
This quote by Socrates emphasizes the principle that retaliating against an injury only leads to a cycle of wrongdoing. It highlights the importance of maintaining one's integrity and moral values, suggesting that seeking justice through vengeance is inherently unjust. Instead of returning harm for harm, one should rise above and uphold a standard of righteousness.
Themes
InjuryJusticeRetaliationIntegrityPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion on ethics and morality in a philosophy class.
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
We anticipate a time when the love of truth shall have come up to our love of liberty, and men shall be cordially tolerant and earnest believers both at once.
Phillips BrooksRead
Public opinion in this country is everything.
Abraham LincolnRead
As the ego cogito, subjectivity is the consciousness that represents something, relates this representation back to itself, and so gathers with itself.
Martin HeideggerRead
Everything lives by movement, everything is maintained by equilibrium, and harmony results from the analogy of contraries; this law is the form of forms.
Eliphas LeviRead
The sage's Way is to act and not to contend.
LaoziRead
If we must have a tyrant, let him at least be a gentleman who has been bred to the business, and let us fall by the axe and not by the butcher's cleaver.
Lord ByronRead