Quote
By Socrates
For if I tell you that to do as you say would be a disobedience to the God, and therefore that I cannot hold my tongue, you will not believe that I am serious; and if I say again that daily to discourse about virtue, and of those other things about which you hear me examining myself and others, is the greatest good of man, and that the unexamined life is not worth living, you are still less likely to believe me.
- Source
- Apology, 1892 · Apology, Stephanus 37e-38a
- Read at
- Plato, translated by Benjamin Jowett (Project Gutenberg text, eBook #1656)
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About this quote
As reported by Plato in the Apology (Jowett translation). Socrates is the speaker, in his defence speech at his trial in 399 BC. He wrote nothing himself. Socrates says it after he is found guilty, when he tells the jury why he cannot stop questioning people. The famous phrase is part of this longer sentence, so the full sentence is given.