It reminded me of this scripture:
2 Nephi 9:28
When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not.
What is the point of learning if we're not using that knowlege? I've had the experience of going to church and hearing a doctrine like the importance of sincere and heart-felt prayer and then going home and not applying it (I'll not put enough thought into my prayers). True wisdom is learning and using that knowlege to become a better person. That is how one finds truth - not merely by studying. but by doing and becoming.
In The Apology, Socrates argues his case to a jury of 500 men as to why he is not guilty of not believing in the Gods and corrupting the youth.
I thought Socrates was sincere and felt he was called of God to teach the people of Athens to be humble. He was right that they were prideful (it is the reason they fought Sparta which proved to be their ruin). Socrates knew that all this pride was bad for Athens and he wanted to show people that they weren’t as smart as they thought they were. He said the only reason he was wiser than them was that he knew he did not know anything whereas others thought they did.
I was sad when the people condemned him to death. It showed that pride was a vice for too many and they preferred to do murder than to swallow that pride. Socrates handled it very well and I believe he was at peace with himself enough that death wasn’t frightful to him. He seemed to have a good relationship with God and was prepared to meet him.
Favorite Quotes:
On being wise:
“I am better off than he is, - for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows; I either know nor think that I know.”
“I found that the men most in repute were all but the most foolish; and that others less esteemed were really wiser and better.”
“He, O men, is the wisest, who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing.”
On being condemned to death:
“The envy and detraction of the world, which has been the death of many good men, and will probably be the death of many more; there is no danger of my being the last of them.”
“A man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong.”
“The difficulty, my friends, is not to avoid death, but to avoid unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death.”
His purpose:
“God orders me to fulfill the philosopher’s mission of searching into myself and other men.”
“I shall obey God rather than you.”
“Are you not ashamed of heaping up the greatest amount of money and honour and reputation, and caring so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard of heed at all?”
“I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue comes money and every other good of man, public as well as private.”
“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
On death:
“I shall then be able to continue my search into true and false knowledge; as in this world, so also in the next.”
On his children:
“If they seem to care about riches, or anything more than about virtue; or if they pretend to be something when they are really nothing, -then reprove them, as I have reproved you.”
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