Socrates

[Jonathan]

According to http://www.socionics.us/celebrities/benchmark.shtml, nine socionists all agreed that Socrates (presumably as portrayed by Plato) was ILI (INTp).

Anyone have any ideas on why ILI and not, say, LII (INTj)?

The dialogues suggest someone who believes in the value of pure logic and in little else. Socrates boils down each person's argument into its core logic, then shows where it's lacking in terms of consistency or false assumptions. Apart from principles of logic, he tends to hold a skeptical view of any belief.

In what way is this kind of thinking Te and not Ti?















“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” ― Socrates

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” ― Socrates

“I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think” ― Socrates

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” ― Socrates

“Be slow to fall into friendship, but when you are in, continue firm and constant.” ― Socrates

“We cannot live better than in seeking to become better.” ― Socrates

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” ― Socrates

“Beware the barrenness of a busy life.” ― Socrates

“Thou shouldst eat to live; not live to eat.” ― Socrates

“From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.” ― Socrates

“My friend...care for your psyche...know thyself, for once we know ourselves, we may learn how to care for ourselves" ― Socrates

“By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.” ― Socrates

“Sometimes you put walls up not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to break them down.” ― Socrates

“He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.” ― Socrates

“Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty.” ― Socrates

“Life contains but two tragedies. One is not to get your heart’s desire; the other is to get it.” ― Socrates

“If you don't get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don't want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can't hold on to it forever. Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is law and no amount of pretending will alter that reality.” ― Socrates

“I did not care for the things that most people care about– making money, having a comfortable home, high military or civil rank, and all the other activities, political appointments, secret societies, party organizations, which go on in our city . . . I set myself to do you– each one of you, individually and in private– what I hold to be the greatest possible service. I tried to persuade each one of you to concern himself less with what he has than with what he is, so as to render himself as excellent and as rational as possible.” ― Socrates

“I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled [poets] to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.” ― Socrates

“What screws us up the most in life is the picture in our head of what it's supposed to be.” ― Socrates

“The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our separate ways, I to die, and you to live. Which of these two is better only God knows.”
― Socrates

“Be of good cheer about death, and know this of a truth, that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.” ― Socrates