Socrates is one of the most notable philosophers of all time. He’s from the Classical Athens period of ancient Greece, which was about the fifth to fourth centuries BCE. He was born in 470 BCE and became a massive influence on Classical antiquity and Western philosophy through his thoughts, ideals and character, per Britannica. Many schools of ancient philosophy wanted to claim him as part of their philosophical teachers, per History.com, and his teachings, such as the Socratic problem or Socratic method, live on through the recounting by his students, since he didn’t write anything down. Our quote of the day comes from one of Plato’s writings about Socrates’s last interactions before his death, where he tells a friend that he believes retaliation and revenge are wrong.
Like many famous thinkers who didn’t live to see their work celebrated, he was heavily mocked while alive. As History.com reported, Socrates ran into political issues because he had friends on many sides and for his act of civil disobedience to the Athenian government. He was then indicted on the crimes of failing to honor the Athenian gods (impiety) and for “corrupting the youth,” basically put on trial for his ideas and his teachings.
Plato was Socrates’s most notable pupil, and most of what we know of him is thanks to Plato’s and Xenophon’s (another student) writings, per History.com. They wrote down the “most significant accounts” of Socrates, his life and his philosophy, and his teachings can still be taken to heart today.
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Quote of the Day by Socrates
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“One should never do wrong in return, nor mistreat any man, no matter how one has been mistreated by him.”
This quote comes from Crito, written by ancient Greek philosopher Plato, specifically the translation done by G.M.A. Grube, a scholar and professor.
This is all a dialogue between Socrates and Crito of Alopece, a wealthy friend who is offering to help finance Socrates’s escape from prison, where he is during this conversation in 399 BCE. Socrates goes on a long tirade about how injustice is not the answer for injustice and personifies the laws of Athens to make his point to Crito. There’s discourse on whether he’s arguing for “unconditional obedience” to the laws of a society or not, but here he is definitely arguing that even if they think the charge is unfair, they can’t fix the situation by breaking him out of prison, which in itself is unlawful.
As seen in another translation by Benjamin Jowett, this quote comes before a big hypothetical point Socrates is making about Athenian law (saying if the “law could speak,” this is what she’d say about Crito’s plan).
“Then we ought not to retaliate or render evil for evil to anyone, whatever evil we may have suffered from him.”
Socrates then ends it with the “voice” that’s always “murmuring in [his] ears,” describing a “humming” conscience that he cannot deviate from.
“Think not of life and children first, and of justice afterwards, but of justice first, that you may be justified before the princes of the world below. For neither will you nor any that belong to you be happier or holier or juster in this life, or happier in another, if you do as Crito bids. Now you depart in innocence, a sufferer and not a doer of evil; a victim, not of the laws, but of men. But if you go forth, returning evil for evil, and injury for injury, breaking the covenants and agreements which you have made with us, and wronging those whom you ought least to wrong, that is to say, yourself, your friends, your country, and us, we shall be angry with you while you live, and our brethren, the laws in the world below, will receive you as an enemy; for they will know that you have done your best to destroy us. Listen, then, to us and not to Crito.”
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Deeper Meaning of Socrates’s Quote—Retaliation Gets You Nowhere Good
While sitting in a prison in ancient Greece, Socrates was still determined to live and die with his morals intact. So, as he says in the last paragraph we shared, he doesn’t want to go “tit for tat” or “an eye for an eye,” even if the other person is wrong. He’d rather die a victim of people rather than of the law, with no “evil” done on his behalf (or by Socrates himself).
Whether you think Socrates was arguing that you should always, without question, follow the rules of society is up to you. But taking the quote at face value, Socrates is saying that it’s never okay to do wrong as retaliation for something bad done to you. No matter how badly you were mistreated, you should stick to your ethics and not sacrifice who you are or your goodness in order to “get back” at the other person.
Some might say that if injustice was done to Socrates by wrongly being convicted of impiety, he wouldn’t be compromising his soul or morals by taking Crito up on his offer to escape prison. However, to Socrates, living truthfully and by his standards is of the utmost importance, and why he tells Crito that going the “eye for an eye” route really will make the whole world blind.
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More Quotes from Socrates
- “I only wish that wisdom were the kind of thing that flowed… from the vessel that was full to the one that was empty.”
- “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.”
- “In every one of us there are two ruling and directing principles, whose guidance we follow wherever they may lead; the one being an innate desire of pleasure; the other, an acquired judgment which aspires after excellence.”
- “Nothing is to be preferred before justice”
- “I myself know nothing, except just a little, enough to extract an argument from another man who is wise and to receive it fairly.”
- “Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.”
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