The Great Master

If we may judge from the bust that has come down to us, Socrates was as far from being handsome as even a philospher can be. But if we look closely, something of that human kindliness and unassuming simplicity which made this homely thinker a teacher beloved of the finest youths in Athens.

How the master lived hardly anybody knew. He never worked, and he took no thought of morrow. He ate when his disciples asked him to honour thier tables; they must have liked his company, for he gave every indication of physiological prosperity.

Why did his pupils like him so much? Perhaps because he was a man as well as a philosopher. He was liked most for his modesty of wisdom. He did not claim to have wisdom, but only to seek it lovingly; he was wisdom's amteur, not its professional.

It was said that that the oracle at Delphi, with unusual good sense, had pronounced him the wisest of the Greeks; and he interpretted this as an approval of the starting point of his philosophy - "One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing". Gnothi Seauton, said Socrates : Know Thyself