The Unexamined Life Is Not Worth Living Quotes & Sayings

Plato says that the unexamined life is not worth living. But what if the examined life turns out to be a clunker as well? — Kurt Vonnegut

A live unexamined isn't worth living. I will add, A life unlived isn't worth examining. — Oscar Wilde

Socrates said that an unexamined life is not worth living. But you know, an over-examined life can be a real crap festival, too. — Alex Bosworth

While most would agree with Socrates that, "the unexamined life is not worth living," a lesser-known quote by Sheldon Kopp might be more important here: "The unlived life is not worth examining. — Meg Jay

Look - I understand that an unexamined life is not worth living, but do you think I could someday have an unexamined lunch? — Elizabeth Gilbert

The philosopher Socrates said, "An unexamined life is not worth living." If a common philosopher could think that, how much more we Christians ought to listen to the Holy Spirit when He says, "Examine yourself." An unexamined Christian lies like an unattended garden. Let your garden go unattended for a few months, and you will not have roses and tomatoes but weeds. An unexamined Christian life is like an unkempt house. Lock your house up as tight as you will and leave it long enough, and when you come back you will not believe the dirt that got in from somewhere. An unexamined Christian is like an untaught child. A child that is not taught will be a little savage. It takes examination, teaching, instruction, discipline, caring, tending, weeding and cultivating to keep the life right. — A.W. Tozer

Socrates once said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." I would expand on his thought by suggesting, "The unexamined society is not worth living in. — Eileen Workman

The Prayer of Examine produces within us the priceless grace of self-knowledge. I wish I could adequately explain to you how great a grace this truly is. Unfortunately, contemporary men and women simply do not value self-knowledge in the same way that all preceding generations have. For us technocratic knowledge reigns supreme. Even when we pursue self-knowledge, we all too often reduce it to a hedonistic search for personal peace and prosperity. How poor we are! Even the pagan philosophers were wiser than this generation. They knew that an unexamined life was not worth living. — Richard J. Foster

In a speech, the columnist Charles Krauthammer ... offered a new version of Socrates' famous saying, "The unexamined life is not worth living." In our age of bottomless self-love and obsession with our own feelings, Krauthammer suggested, "The too-examined life is not worth living either. — John Leo

Why do people do this?'
'Blog, you mean? I don't know ... didn't someone once say the unexamined life isn't worth living?'
'Yeah, Plato,' said Strike, 'but this isn't examining a life, it's exhibiting it. — Robert Galbraith

I started asking the big questions that I had asked in college, that my compatriots the Greek philosophers had asked, like 'what is a good life?' Socrates famously said that 'The unexamined life is not worth living.' I started asking these questions from the starting point of 'what is success?' — Arianna Huffington

You have to adhere to a philosophy that the life unexamined is not worth living, because otherwise you're just living from day to day and you don't have any real sense of yourself or where you are. — Tom Hanks

Socrates told us, "the unexamined life is not worth living." I think he's calling for curiosity, more than knowledge. In every human society at all times and at all levels, the curious are at the leading edge. — Roger Ebert

William James said, "You cannot travel without until you have travelled within." Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." People who discover their sweet spot are people who take the inward journey and examine themselves. They make the choice to live until they die. — Scott M. Fay

Plato did claim that the unexamined life was not worth living. Oedipus Rex was not so sure. — Tom Robbins

Dogs are never in a bad mood over something you said at breakfast. Dogs never sniff at the husks of old conversations, or conduct autopsies on weekends gone wrong. An unexamined life may not be worth living, but the overexamined life is hell. We talk too much. — Abigail Thomas

Socrates had it wrong; it is not the unexamined but finally the uncommitted life that is not worth living. — William Sloane Coffin

The unexamined life may not be worth living, but the life too closely examined may not be lived at all. — Mark Twain

Where once the student was taught that the unexamined life was not worth living, he is now taught that the profitably lived life is not worth examining. — Benjamin Barber

Life unexamined, is not worth living. — Democritus

Know Thyself. It's good advice. Know yourself. You are worth knowing. Examine your life. The unexamined life is not worth living. Be aware that other people have equal significance. Give them the space to make their own choices, and let their choices count as you want them to let your choices count. Remember that excellence has no stopping point and keep on pursuing it. Make art that can last and that says something nobody else can say. Live the best life you can, and become the best self you can. You cannot know which of your actions is the lever that will move worlds. Not even Necessity knows all ends. Know yourself. — Jo Walton

Life is worth living but not worth thinking about — Marty Rubin

What Socrates called the "unexamined life" that is "not worth living" now seems to be the life more people have slipped into than ever before. — Os Guinness

The unexamined life is not worth living. But if all you're doing is examining, then you're not living! — Adam Leipzig

As Socrates I believe said the unexamined life is not worth living. I believe that's true. I do believe that. — Joy Behar

An unexamined life is not worth living, and an unexamined faith is not worth holding. — Ergun Caner

What do you think Socrates meant when he said, "The unexamined life is not worth living"? Third, — Karen Armstrong

It may be true that the unexamined life is not worth living-but neither is the unlived life worth examining. — Dan Millman

( ... )while it's true that the unexamined life is not worth living, it's also true that the unlived life isn't worth examining. — Robert McKee

Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living. But the over-examined life makes you wish you were dead. Given the alternative, I'd rather be living. — Saul Bellow

The ancient Greeks were the first ones to say an unexamined life is not worth living. They don't tell you of course what we found out, an examined life not that fascinating either. — Colin Quinn

No one seriously doubts Socrates' maxim: The unexamined life isn't worth living. Self-assessment and attempts at self-improvement are essential aspects of "the good life." Yes, we should engage in ruthless self-reflection and harsh scrutiny, but we should simultaneously acknowledge that such introspection will, at best, only result in a partial view of our minds at work. Complete objectivity is not an option. — Robert A. Burton

If the unexamined life was not worth living, was the unlived life worth examining? — Paul Kalanithi

Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living. Perhaps it's time to inventory the imprints and anchors in our own life. Even if they once were completely reasonable, are they still reasonable? Once the old choices are reconsidered, we can open ourselves to new decisions-and the new opportunities of a new day. — Dan Ariely

The very essence of leadership is you have a vision. It's got to be a vision you articulate clearly and forcefully on every occasion.
Whatever you value, be committed to it and let nothing distract you from this goal. The uncommitted life, like Plato's unexamined life, is not worth living. — Theodore M. Hesburgh