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
Do not grieve over someone who changes all of the sudden. It might be that he has given up acting and returned to his true self.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote encourages acceptance of changes in others as a return to their authentic selves rather than a cause for sadness.
Socrates highlights the importance of recognizing that people can change and that these changes may reflect a deeper, more genuine aspect of their identity. Instead of grieving over someone's sudden transformation, we should understand it as their liberation from pretense, which can often lead to a more honest connection with ourselves and others.
Themes
ChangeAuthenticitySelfAcceptancePhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about personal growth, one might say this quote to encourage acceptance of friends' changes.
More from Socrates
All quotes →The 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
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