“I would like to die on Mars. Just not on impact.”
Elon Musk · SXSW, 2013
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The unexamined life is not worth living.
About this quote
Meaning
Socrates is making a claim that goes far beyond simple encouragement to think harder. He is arguing that a life in which a person never questions their own values, assumptions, and choices is not truly a human life in the fullest sense. Existence alone is not enough. What gives life worth, in his view, is the ongoing practice of turning attention inward, testing what you believe against reason, and being willing to revise how you live based on what you find.
Context
These words appear in Plato's dialogue the Apology, which presents Socrates defending himself before an Athenian jury that had charged him with impiety and corrupting the youth of the city. Facing a death sentence, Socrates refused to promise that he would stop philosophizing if acquitted. The line is part of his argument that abandoning philosophical inquiry would be a worse fate than death itself. It is therefore not a casual remark but a statement made at the highest possible personal cost, giving it unusual weight.
About the author
Socrates was an Athenian philosopher of the fifth century BC who is widely regarded as one of the foundational figures of Western philosophy. He wrote nothing himself, and what we know of his ideas comes primarily through dialogues written by his student Plato. His method of teaching through persistent questioning, often called the Socratic method, challenged the assumptions of everyone he spoke with, eventually making him enemies powerful enough to bring him to trial. He was executed in 399 BC by being made to drink hemlock.
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