IV – Quotes by Socrates – Challenges, Power and Justice

Transform the stones which you stumble upon into the stones of your stairway.

A life without challenges is not worth living.

Under the direction of a strong general there shall never be weak soldiers.

What you cannot enforce, do not command.

For a man to be complete he must study, work and fight.

Seek to undergo with enthusiasm everything needed to be done.

The power of a few becomes ever stronger when people refrain from questioning it.

The fewer our wants the more we resemble the Gods

If all misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart.

One who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice; it is not right to return an injury, or to do evil to any man, however much we have suffered from him.

Do not do to others what angers you if done to you by others.

Nothing is to be preferred before justice.

It is better to suffer an injustice than to commit one.

Only those who understand the beauty of forgiveness are fit to judge their fellow men.

There are four characteristics that a judge must possess: to listen courteously, answer wisely, ponder with prudence and decide impartially.

“And I prophesy to you who are my judges, that immediately after my death punishment far heavier than you have inflicted on me, by Zeus, will surely await you who have murdered me. Me you have killed because you wanted to escape the accuser, and not to give an account of your lives. But that will not be as you suppose: far otherwise. (…) For if you think that by killing men you can avoid the accuser censoring your lives, you are mistaken; that is not a way of escape which is either possible or honorable; the easiest and the noblest way is not to be crushing others, but to be improving yourselves.”