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
An unexamined life is a life of no account.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Living without self-reflection can lead to a meaningless existence.
Socrates highlights the importance of introspection, suggesting that failing to examine one's life can result in an existence that lacks purpose and significance. By encouraging people to reflect on their values, decisions, and the overall direction of their lives, he implies that true fulfillment comes from understanding oneself and oneβs experiences.
Themes
Self-ReflectionPurposeIntrospectionExistenceMeaning
In practice
Example use cases
During a philosophy lecture discussing the importance of self-awareness.
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
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I can speak to my soul only when the two of us are off exploring deserts or cities or mountains or roads.
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Once you experience Third World poverty, you're really changed forever, if you're at all open to it, because we're all united in our common humanity. And we are so made as to feel something for people who are in pain. It's not possible to be human and to be unaffected by what you see in the third world.
Martin SheenRead
In order to find God in ourselves, we must stop looking at ourselves, stop checking and verifying ourselves in the mirror of our own futility, and be content to be in Him and to do whatever He wills, according to our limitations, judging our acts not in the light of our own illusions, but in the light of His reality which is all around us in the things and people we live with.
Thomas MertonRead