Entries from Come Sit a While that draw on the words of Socrates.
Socrates (c. 470–399 BC) wrote nothing. Every word we have from him was preserved by others — principally his student Plato — and yet he is considered the founding figure of Western philosophy, the man from whom nearly all subsequent thinking about ethics, truth, and the examined life descends. He was born in Athens, the son of a stonemason and a midwife. He served as a soldier, fought with documented courage at several battles, and then returned to Athens to spend the rest of his life doing something unusual: walking through the marketplace asking people questions. He questioned politicians about justice, poets about beauty, craftsmen about wisdom — and in almost every case he found that the people most certain they possessed a virtue understood it least. He called himself not a teacher but a midwife of ideas, helping others give birth to truths they already carried within them. He was ugly by Athenian standards, barefoot by habit, and utterly indifferent to wealth, status, or comfort. He wore the same simple cloak winter and summer and ate and drank with equal moderation. He was married to Xanthippe, who by his own account was formidable, and he credited her directness with keeping him honest. In 399 BC, at the age of seventy, he was tried by an Athenian jury on charges of impiety and corrupting the youth. He was found guilty and sentenced to death by hemlock. He was given opportunity to escape; his friends begged him to flee. He refused. He would not save his life by doing something dishonorable. He drank the hemlock with a steadiness that astonished everyone in the room. He died as he had lived — consistent all the way through.
Entries featuring Socrates
- The Practice of Becoming (2026-06-08)
Drawn from 1 entries · refreshed July 24, 2026