Meaning

This line captures the idea that genuine wisdom begins with humility about the limits of one's own knowledge. Rather than treating expertise as a destination, it frames understanding as a continuous process of questioning. The person who believes they already know everything closes themselves off to learning, while the person who acknowledges uncertainty remains open to discovering more.

Context

The phrase comes from Plato's Apology, one of the dialogues in which Plato depicts Socrates defending himself before an Athenian jury. In that text, Socrates describes visiting people considered wise by their society and finding that their confidence in their knowledge was largely unfounded. His conclusion was not that he was brilliant, but that he held a small advantage: he did not mistake ignorance for knowledge. The exact wording of the quote is a later distillation rather than a word-for-word translation, but it faithfully represents the argument Plato attributes to Socrates.

About the author

Socrates was an Athenian philosopher of the fifth century BCE who is regarded as one of the founding figures of Western philosophy. He left no writings of his own, so his ideas survive primarily through the dialogues written by his student Plato. His method of teaching through probing questions, often called the Socratic method, remains influential in education and philosophical practice to this day. He was tried and executed by Athens in 399 BCE on charges of impiety and corrupting the youth.