In the Symposium, Socrates says:

❝Even during the period for which any living being is said to live and retain his identity. [Man] he is always becoming a new being and undergoing a process of loss and reparation, which affects not only his body, but his soul as well. No man's character, habits, opinions desires pleasures pains and fears remain always the same: new ones come into existence and old ones disappear.❞

Socrates often brought people to the realization that they were not the best they could be, and perhaps they did not know what they thought they did.

❝I go around doing nothing but persuading both young and old among you not to care for your body or your wealth in preference to or as strongly as for the best state of your soul, as I say to you: Wealth does not bring about excellence, but excellence brings about wealth and all the other public and private blessings for men.❞

Socrates truly believed that "the unexamined life is not worth living." To know your soul must be the prime focus of life, not just a superficial quest for possessions and wealth. He felt that people far too often forget what they should be doing and what they should be concerned with. By endeavoring to get in touch with the inner self, it becomes a necessity to clear away some of the forces that hamper our search for virtue and self-knowledge.

I think maybe he was the wisest because he knew that the search for virtue and truthfulness was in fact a journey within -- a journey to understanding yourself, your soul, and to making it as pure as possible. The journey doesn't require a thick rule book, rituals or reverence to deities unseen. It just requires a willingness to travel the road. Accept change and accept that as old fears, pleasures and pains disappear, new ones come into existence. Easier said than done. We're afraid of what lurks beneath the surface of the unknown. Perhaps nothing? (What can be scarier than nothing? Seriously.) Perhaps we subconsciously fear the truth, afraid we'll be crushed by the enormous responsibility of it's discovery.

At the mention of Socrates, what comes to mind first? Most likely "the good life", wisdom and justice. Virtues we should all strive for, but one thing is missing to make a most powerful combination. It is a virtue we must work hardest above all to possess: Bravery. Fear devalues and eventually obliterates the worth of our principles, it rocks the core of the mental foundation of our existence, of the reality we create. Facing the unknown, Socrates chose not to fear - we are given the same choice, if we dare take the first step:

"Know thy soul" "Know thyself"