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

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』に基づく後世の意訳Unverified

Socrates's Other Quotes

The unexamined life is not worth living.

I know that I know nothing.

It is not living that matters, but living rightly.

No one desires evil.

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

Related Quotes

Behold what is absent as firmly present through the mind.

-- Parmenides

I know that I do not know.

-- Plato

I know that I know nothing.

-- Socrates

Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.

-- Hypatia

New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.

-- John Locke

The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.

-- Bertrand Russell