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
I am quite ready to acknowledge . . . that I ought to be grieved at death, if I were not persuaded that I am going to other gods who are wise and good (of this I am as certain as I can be of any such matters), and to men departed who are better than those whom I leave behind. And therefore I do not grieve as I might have done, for I have good hope that there is yet something remaining for the dead.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Socrates expresses acceptance of death, believing in a better existence afterward.
In this quote, Socrates reflects on his attitude towards death, suggesting that rather than being overwhelmed with grief, he finds comfort in the belief that he will be joining wise and good deities, as well as virtuous individuals who have passed away. This perspective allows him to confront death with hope and acceptance, seeing it not as an end, but as a transition to a potentially greater existence.
Themes
DeathBeliefHopeAfterlifeAcceptance
In practice
Example use cases
A motivational speaker could use this quote to discuss overcoming fear of the unknown.
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
Similar quotes
Everything we do these days - our lust for ever more comfort, pleasure, and distraction, our refusal to engage with the mandates of reality, our fidelity to cults of technology and limitless growth, our narcissistic national exceptionalism - all of this propels us toward the realm where souls abandon all hope.
James Howard KunstlerRead
This awful concept of underclass is really horrifying. You're not lower class, you are excluded - outside.
Zygmunt BaumanRead
He spoke well who said that graves are the footprints of angels.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowRead
The world is put back by the death of every one who has to sacrifice the development of his or her peculiar gifts to conventionality.
Florence NightingaleRead
If we go on to cast a look at the fate of these World-Historical persons, whose vocation it was to be the agents of the World-Spirit, we shall find it to have been no happy one. They attained no calm enjoyment; their whole life was labour and trouble; their whole nature was nought else but their master—passion. When their object is attained they fall off like empty hulls from the kernel. They die early, like Alexander; they are murdered, like Caesar.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich HegelRead
Stereotypes should never influence policy or public opinion.
Janet RenoRead