Socrates and his stories
The monument of Socrates / Athens
In ancient Greece (469 – 399 BC), Socrates was widely lauded for his wisdom
Once Greek’s famous philosopher Socrates was talking to his disciples. At same time, an astrologer arrived there and claimed that he could tell a person’s character by looking at the face.
Then Astrologer looked at Socrates and said, “Shape of nostrils tell that this person have anger issue..”
Listening to this Socrates disciples got angry but Socrates calmed them down and asked astrologer to continue.
Then astrologer said, “Shape of the head reveals that he is definitely a greedy person. The composition of chin says that he is a capricious person. Shape of his lips and teeth tell that this person always incite people to rebel against the authority.”
Even after listening to all this, Socrates rewarded astrologer and sent him.
Disciples were surprised at this. They asked him reason to reward astrologer even when whatever he said was only negative things about him.
Socrates calmed them down and said, “Whatever astrologer said about me is true. I accept that I have all those negative points in me and that’s why I rewarded him.
But that astrologer had made a mistake...
That is he said all negative things but didn’t stressed over power of my conscience. He didn’t say that with the power of my conscience I keep control over all these negative things of my nature.
Moral: No one in this world is perfect. Everyone lacks one or other thing but still if we can control our nature and use power of our conscience then we can deal with any difficulties easily.
There’s a common knowledge story kicked around about “The Triple Filters Test.” Sometimes it involves Socrates and other times it involves an Arab scholar, but the truth of the story is the same.
One day the great philosopher came upon an acquaintance, who ran up to him excitedly and said, “Socrates, do you know what I just heard about one of your students?”
“Wait a moment,” Socrates replied. “Before you tell me, I’d like you to pass a little test. It’s called the Test of Three.”“Test of Three?”
“That’s correct,” Socrates continued. “Before you talk to me about, let’s take a moment to test what you’re going to say. The first test is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?”
“No,” the man replied, “actually I've just heard about it.”
“All right,” said Socrates. “So you don’t really know if it’s true or not. Now let’s try the second test - the test of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my student something good?”
“No, on the contrary…”
“So,” Socrates continued, “you want to tell me something bad about him even though you’re not certain it’s true?”
The man shrugged, a little embarrassed.
Socrates continued, “You may still pass though because there is a third test – the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my student going to be useful to me?”
“No, not really…”
“Well,” concluded Socrates, “if what you want to tell me is neither true, nor good, nor even useful, why tell it to me at all?”
The man was defeated and ashamed and said no more.
P.S. The wise stories, aren't they?
They're true, good and useful. All in all, they are worth telling ;)
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