The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates

I have always been perplexed about the “why” of death sentence to Socrates, being blamed for corrupting the minds of the youth of Athens, albeit his philosophy was about piety, justice, temperance, rationality, logic, knowledge... “Know thyself”. I have also been curious about the significance of last words of Soctrates “Crito, we owe a rooster to Asclepius. Please, don't forget to pay the debt”. Asclepius was the god of health. The sacrifice of a cock meant offering of gratitude for recovery from sickness. Socrates, probably, meant that he was cured of all the ailments of life.

Socrates had not written any texts but most of the account on his philosophical discourses has been provided by Plato and Xenophon who were the students of Socrates. I got to lay my hands on a wonderful book “The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates”, by Xenophon & translated by Edward Bysshe.  

Xenophon has opposed the sham allegations against Socrates. He writes about various conversations of Socrates and the knowledge, which is required while conducting one’s life. He speaks about Socrates as most sober and most chaste of all men and that he wasn’t a debaucher of young men. He writes about how Socrates behaved throughout his life.

He writes in the book about Socrates conversations on pleasure and temperance, vain self-conceit and ostentation, respect to parents, worth, value & choice of friends & friendship, getting rid of poverty, useful & honorable employment, justice as per the merit, qualifications of a General, necessity of exercise to health and strength of body, an honest and good life being the best song of thanksgiving or the most acceptable sacrifice to the deity, the mischief of intemperance and the advantages of sobriety and many more.

Few Quotes-

“He used often to say he was in love, but it was easy to see it was not with the beauty of one’s person that he was taken, but with the virtues of his mind.”

“For kings are not chosen to take care of themselves only, but to render happy the people who choose them.”

“…Thus the fatigues of hunting discourage not the hunters, because they hope to take the game they pursue.”

“As things now stand, if I die innocent the shame will fall on those who are the cause of my death, since all sort of iniquity is attended with shame. But who will ever blame me because others have not confessed my innocence, nor done me justice? Past experience lets us see that they who suffer injustice, and they who commit it, leave not a like reputation behind them after their death.”

Xenophon pens his thoughts about Socrates:

“pious as to do nothing without the advice of the Deity; so just as never to have in the least injured any man, and to have done very signal services to many; so chaste and temperate as never to have preferred delight and pleasure before modesty and honesty; so prudent as never to have mistaken in the discernment of good and evil, and never to have had need of the advice of others, to form a right judgment of either; moreover, most capable to deliberate and resolve in all sorts of affairs, most capable to examine into men, to reprehend them for their vices, and to excite them to virtue; having, I say, found all these perfections in Socrates, I have always esteemed him the most virtuous and most happy of all men; and if anyone be not of my opinion, let him take the pains to compare him with other men, and judge of him afterwards”

My obvious next breading was “The Apology of Socrates” by Plato (translated by Henry Cary Edited, Annotated & Compiled by Rhonda L Kelley), which is a Socratic dialogue of the speech of legal self-defense which Socrates spoke at his trial for impiety and corruption in 399 BCE.  

“The Apology” is Plato’s account of the three speeches that Socrates gave at his trial for false teaching and heresy in 399 B.C.E. At the age of 71, Socrates fought at his trial not for his life, but for the truth. He urged his fellow Athenians to examine their own lives, to question their leaders, and to pursue wisdom. He warned the judges that they could not avoid the truth or silence their critics by killing him, but he also promised his friends and students that death was nothing to fear. Plato, Socrates’ faithful student, was an attendant at both his trial and his subsequent execution. It was up to Socrates’ students to record for posterity his teachings and to bear witness to his trial, because the great teacher himself would never have bothered; Socrates did not trust the written word. Thankfully, Plato had no such reservations, and he gifted to us “The Apology” which stands over two millennia later as a monument to freedom and justice and truth’’

RHONDA L. KELLEY

What a fantastic book to read. At the end Socrates talks about death as a blessing, which is an eye opener. I quote:

“We may hence conclude that there is great hope that death is a blessing. For to die is one of two things: for either the dead may be annihilated, and have no sensation of anything whatever; or, as it is said, there are a certain change and passage of the soul from one place to another. And if it is a privation of all sensation, as it were a sleep in which the sleeper has no dream, death would be a wonderful gain. For I think that if any one, having selected a night in which he slept so soundly as not to have had a dream, and having compared this night with all the other nights and days of his life, should be required, on consideration, to say how many days and nights he had passed better and more pleasantly than this night throughout his life, I think that not only a private person, but even the great king himself, would find them easy to number, in comparison with other days and nights. If, therefore, death is a thing of this kind, I say it is a gain; for thus all futurity appears to be nothing more than one night. But if, on the other hand, death is a removal from hence to another place, and what is said be true, that all the dead are there, what greater blessing can there be than this, my judges? For if, on arriving at Hades, released from these who pretend to be judges, one shall find those who are true judges, and who are said to judge there, Minos and Rhadamanthus, Æacus and Triptolemus, and such others of the demi-gods as were just during their own life, would this be a sad removal? At what price would you not estimate a conference with Orpheus and Musæus, Hesiod and Homer? I indeed should be willing to die often, if this be true. For to me the sojourn there would be admirable, when I should meet with Palamedes, and Ajax, son of Telamon, and any other of the ancients who has died by an unjust sentence. The comparing my sufferings with theirs would, I think, be no unpleasing occupation. But the greatest pleasure would be to spend my time in questioning and examining the people there as I have done those here, and discovering who among them is wise, and who fancies himself to be so, but is not. At what price, my judges, would not any one estimate the opportunity of questioning him who led that mighty army against Troy, or Ulysses, or Sisyphus, or ten thousand others whom one might mention both men and women, with whom to converse and associate, and to question them, would be an inconceivable happiness? Surely for that the judges there do not condemn to death; for in other respects those who live there are more happy than those who are here, and are henceforth immortal, if, at least, what is said be true.  You, therefore, O my judges! ought to entertain good hopes with respect to death, and to meditate on this one truth, that to a good man nothing is evil, neither while living nor when dead, nor are his concerns neglected by the gods. And what has befallen me is not the effect of chance; but this is clear to me, that now to die, and be freed from my cares is better for me. On this account the warning in no way turned me aside; and I bear no resentment toward those who condemned me, or against my accusers, although they did not condemn and accuse me with this intention, but thinking to injure me: in this they deserve to be blamed.”