Socrates

5th-century BCE Greek philosopher

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Lived -470–-399, aged 71Brazil

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Wikipedia
205 languages
Cross-language footprint
Global rank
#22
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Era
-470–-399
Aged 71
Known for
Bramman
2014

Summary

Updated 2026-07-17

He wrote nothing, taught by question, and drank poison rather than recant. Fifth-century Athens put Socrates to death for impiety and corrupting the young—and in doing so made him the founding martyr of Western philosophy.

Biography

About

Born around 470 BC in Classical Athens, Socrates spent his life interrogating citizens in the agora, using relentless questions to expose contradictions in their supposed knowledge—a method his student Plato would immortalize in dialogues that became the blueprint for Western thought. He claimed to know only that he knew nothing. In 399 BC, he was tried on charges of impiety and corrupting the youth; the trial lasted a single day. Sentenced to death, he refused escape and drank hemlock. Because he authored no texts, everything known about him comes from others—chiefly Plato and Xenophon—whose…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Socrates

Socrates

saidundated

I only wish that wisdom were the kind of thing that flowed ... from the vessel that was full to the one that was empty.

— Plato, Symposium, 175d

Socrates

saidundated

It would be better for me... that multitudes of men should disagree with me rather than that I, being one, should be out of harmony with myself.

— Gorgias, 482c

Socrates

saidundated

Oh dear Pan and all the other gods of this place, grant that I may be beautiful inside. Let all my external possessions be in friendly harmony with what is within.

— Socrates' prayer, Phaedrus, 279

Socrates

saidundated