I know that I know nothing.

hen oida hoti ouden oida

Socrates

Philosophers

Socrates

Fifth-century BC Athenian philosopher who wrote nothing yet transformed Western thought. Through questioning in the agora he shifted philosophy from cosmology to ethics, making the examined life its central pursuit.

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Source: プラトン『ソクラテスの弁明』21d (趣旨の要約。原文ではこの定型表現そのものは登場しない)Unverified

Socrates's Other Quotes

The unexamined life is not worth living.

It is not living that matters, but living rightly.

I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.

No one desires evil.

I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.

Related Quotes

For thinking and Being are the same.

-- Parmenides

You must learn all things: both the steadfast heart of well-rounded Truth and the opinions of mortals, in which there is no true trust.

-- Parmenides

I know that I do not know.

-- Plato

Imagine prisoners chained underground since childhood, seeing only shadows on a wall and taking them for reality.

-- Plato

I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.

-- Socrates

Color exists by convention, sweet by convention, bitter by convention; in reality there are only atoms and void.

-- Democritus