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but for now let’s get on with how to master 
self-control from the philosophy of Socrates.

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Socrates was the founder of Western philosophy and 
one of the most famous philosophers in the world.

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He lived in ancient Greece between 
469 and 399 BCE, yet surprisingly

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never wrote anything in his life. What remains of 
his philosophy today actually comes from Plato,

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Aristophanes and Xenophon who described the 
dialogues between Socrates and various Athenians.

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These writings formed what is now 
referred to as ‘The Socratic Dialogues’.

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For Socrates, philosophy is a quest for wisdom and

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in the Socratic dialogues he often questioned 
the beliefs of the people he was talking to.

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His way of asking questions gave birth to the type 
of philosophy called Philosophical Skepticism.

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Socrates was an embodiment of not only true 
wisdom, but also true courage. When he was old,

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he was imprisoned after the government of 
Athens accused him of corrupting the youth

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and failing to acknowledge the city’s official 
gods. Instead of attempting escape, he chose

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to take responsibility for himself. He was then 
sentenced to death. Teaching philosophy was the

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mission of his life and he encouraged everyone 
to question everything, no matter the risk.

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One fundamental teaching of Socrates refers to 
the theme of self control. According to Socrates,

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wisdom or philosophy allows people to adopt 
self-control and to do what is right in their

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life. To achieve self control, people must be 
free from their appetites for bodily pleasures,

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like food, drink, sex and other physical comforts.

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For example, Socrates was famous for going 
barefoot and dressing as simply as possible,

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managing to control his own passions, desires, 
and appetites. His asceticism - or severe

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self-discipline - is difficult to follow in our 
modern lives as for many of us such a lifestyle is

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neither practical nor desirable. In spite of this, 
he can still teach us to enhance our self-control,

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and to help you better understand his teachings 
regarding the mastery of self-control and how best

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to implement them into your own life, here 
are 3 lessons from the wisdom of Socrates:

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Be in control of your bodily desires
Socrates says “If you don’t get what you want,

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you suffer; if you get what you don’t want, you 
suffer; even when you get exactly what you want,

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you still suffer because you 
can’t hold on to it forever.”

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Socrates said that individual desires must 
be postponed in the name of a higher ideal.

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According to Socrates in the book Phaedo, also 
called “On The Soul”, one of the best-known

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dialogues of Plato, it is not enough to consider 
the bodily pleasures as bad or worthless,

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but we should avoid them as much as 
possible, because they distract us

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and affect our capacity of reasoning. If we 
don’t have rational control over our desires,

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we won’t be able to make smart decisions in 
life and this would lead us towards unhappiness.

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The key towards happiness and virtue, virtue 
meaning the same thing as wisdom for Socrates,

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is to turn our attention away from bodily 
pleasures and instead turn it towards the soul.

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Bodily pleasures include indulging in food, sex 
or anything which gives us a feeling of extreme

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physical satisfaction. In some ways, Socrates 
recommends an ascetic, or austere, lifestyle.

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For example, he said that philosophers “oppose 
the body in every respect” and that they “avoid

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pleasures, desires, pains, and fears to whatever 
extent is possible”. According to Socrates,

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the common people, the non-philosophers, have 
an impure soul, always slaves to their bodily

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desires, letting it bewitch their actions. Even 
when entirely conscious and in control of their

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actions, such people will willingly act in the 
direction of accomplishing their worldly desires.

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By contrast, philosophers focus on the pleasure of 
learning, on gathering knowledge, on understanding

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the truth, of what justice means. Thus, they 
escape the prison of bodily pleasures. Just like

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the philosophers described by Socrates, instead of 
focusing on our bodily desires, we need to find a

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higher aim in life, something that is greater 
than ourselves, than our temporary existence.

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If we live in a world of personal desires, chasing 
them one by one, we can never be happy, no matter

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how many we fulfill. If we cannot fulfill them, we 
will suffer, we will also suffer if we do fulfill

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them because eventually we will realize we cannot 
hold on to them forever. Even if we satisfy them,

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new desires will come. No matter how much 
food you eat now, after a few hours you will

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be hungry again. Or, if your relationship 
is based solely on physical attraction,

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eventually this will fade and you will be 
left with someone you share no connection with

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and an unhappy relationship that will 
most likely end bitterly and prematurely.

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If you covet money and the trappings of a wealthy 
lifestyle, no amount of money will ever be enough.

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The more money you make, the 
more things you will find to buy.

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It is better to find a goal that transcends 
one’s own life. For example, instead of focusing

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on making a lot of money just to enjoy luxury 
vacations, fancy cars or an oversized house,

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it will make you happier over the long-term if 
you focus on making this world a better place.

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No matter your profession, instead of focusing on 
getting the most highly paid job in the industry,

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you should focus instead on getting 
a job or starting a business

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in which your skills and talents will have 
the highest positive impact on society.

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In the case of physical love, instead of 
focusing on the physical pleasure you get

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from your relationship with your partner, it is 
better to focus on the connection you two have,

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on the intellectual connection with your partner, 
on the hobbies and life goals you share together,

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and if you choose to do so, building a family 
together and raising the next generation.

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We need to escape the prison of selfish personal 
desires and interests, we need to expand our

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areas of interest and formulate goals that 
are higher than our individual existence.

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We can never really be free and happy 
if we are slaves to our bodily desires.

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We can only control ourselves and our lives if 
we don’t let bodily desires direct our lives.

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Be Just
To quote Socrates: “One should

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never do wrong in return, nor mistreat any man, 
no matter how one has been mistreated by him.”

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For Socrates, justice is one of the main 
human virtues and it is better to be just

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than unjust. Socrates believed that we 
have three parts of the soul: reason,

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“logistikon”, spirit, “thymoeides“ 
and appetite, “epithymetikon”

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and he points out that one is just when each of 
the three parts of the soul performs its function

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and does not interfere negatively with the others. 
Reason being a goal-seeking and measuring faculty,

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should be in charge of ruling over the spirit 
and appetite, as its primary function is to rule

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through the love of learning. However, we cannot 
go anywhere in life without spirit and appetite,

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the power of spirit and appetite 
are indispensable for life itself.

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It is considered that the spirit is the part of 
the soul which manifests anger or other strong

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emotions. When the spirit performs its function 
well, the spirit obeys the directions of reason,

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while strongly defending the entire soul 
from external invasion - when for example

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someone accuses you of lying and you need 
to immediately reply by defending yourself,

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and from internal disorder - when you have an 
important event, you feel a lot of anxiety,

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but your reason tells you that you can perform 
better when you are calm, so the spirit tries to

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follow the reason by trying to regulate your 
behavior, tempering the feelings of anxiety.

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The function of appetite is to produce and seek 
pleasure. In spite of the fact that the appetite

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can have its own goals, for example going to a 
restaurant to eat your favorite meal , it cannot

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differentiate between short-term satisfaction 
and goals that can produce long term happiness.

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It is only reason that can formulate the 
right goals to achieve long term happiness.

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For example, if your favorite meal is not 
a healthy meal, eating it every day would

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be damaging for your health. Therefore, 
it is important to follow your reason,

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only in this way you will have 
a chance at long-term happiness.

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Justice is defined by Socrates as a natural 
balance of the soul's parts making injustice

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an imbalance. What makes us unjust is usually a 
lawless attitude given by the fact that we are

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slaves to our desires, when the appetite 
governs over the functions that should be

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performed by reason or spirit. If we experience 
and act on this state, sooner or later we will

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experience disorder and regret, potentially 
becoming unsatisfiable and even fearful.

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In Plato’s “Republic”, where Socrates appears as a 
main character, it is said that anyone who is not

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a philosopher, has a divided soul, the three parts 
interfere with each other and thus there is an

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imbalance. He posits that philosophers are capable 
of directing their appetite as their decisions are

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taken by reason. However for the rest of us, it is 
not a trivial thing to resist one’s own appetite.

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To be just, according to Socrates, we need to 
pay attention to which part of our soul rules us.

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For example, a characteristic 
pleasure of philosophers is learning,

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a characteristic pleasure of egotists is being 
honored, a characteristic pleasure of narcissists

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is making money. Then, Socrates proved that 
some characteristics are better than others

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and he proved that the characteristics 
of philosophers are the best.

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Socrates believed that there are lower and 
higher pleasures, the lower pleasures being the

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bodily pleasures that we get from food, drink, 
sex, comfort etc. while the higher pleasures

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are the intellectual ones, like the pleasure of 
learning. We should pursue the ‘lower’ pleasure

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only insofar as it is necessary for survival, 
as the lower pleasure is not even true pleasure,

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it is just the absence of pain. Also, he 
calculated that the life of a philosopher king,

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who is the embodiment of a just person, will 
be 729 times as pleasant as that of a tyrant,

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the unjust person, whose life is governed 
by desire for the lowest pleasures. Thus,

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according to Socrates, just people are in 
general happier than the unjust people.

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There are many cases of tyrants or dictators 
who abused their population, stealing money

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from the poor just to meet their insatiable 
desire for power and a luxurious lifestyle.

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The more selfish we are, stepping on other people, 
mistreating them, just to follow our own interests

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and desires, the less we will be capable of 
changing this behavior in the future. Once someone

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tastes a life of luxury by doing immoral actions, 
it is difficult to go back to a moral life.

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What one can learn from this teaching of Socrates 
in order to be a just person is to be more

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detached from worldly pleasures, such as the love 
of money, fame, sex, food and so on. We need to do

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what we can to ensure we get a good education, say 
learning philosophy as well as practical things

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which expand our knowledge of world, and - if we 
have more than we need, to not lose ourselves in

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pursuing a lavish lifestyle; we need to engage 
in collaborative activities with other people,

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to make sure that our actions do not hurt others 
or better yet, actively support and bring each

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other up. If we do so, it will become easier to 
be just, virtuous, to treat others in a fair way

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and it will allow us to have more 
control over ourselves in general.

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3. Know yourself

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As Socrates so simply said: “Know thyself.”

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“Know thyself” is one of the Delphic 
maxims and was the first of three maxims

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inscribed in the Temple of Apollo at Delphi 
according to the Greek writer Pausanias,

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together with “nothing to excess" 
and "certainty brings insanity".

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When Socrates was asked to 
sum up the entire philosophy,

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he replied: ‘Know yourself.’ Thus, knowing 
ourselves can be the meaning of one’s own life.

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Wisdom or philosophy teaches us to have 
self control and to do what is right

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in life. According to Socrates, to have a 
high level of self-control and confidence,

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we should know ourselves deeply. Not everything 
that we can know about ourselves is important.

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What is important are the things related to the 
inner core of who we are, not trivial things like

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when you were born for example, but rather things 
like: what are your talents or passions? What is

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your real personality? What kind of behavioral 
patterns do you usually follow in life? What are

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your vulnerabilities? Are you more emotional 
or rational when making decisions? How do

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you handle conflicts? What qualities do you find 
attractive? How self-confident are you? And so on…

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We often underestimate the importance of knowing 
the answers to these type of questions. A lack of

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self-knowledge can lead us into difficult 
situations. For example, not knowing your

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real talents or passions can make you follow the 
wrong career in life, say, choosing medicine over

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a career in music because it’s what your parents 
want. Not knowing that you prefer creative tasks

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to organizational skills and taking a promotion 
into management, not knowing that you are a

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very emotional person and love to interact with 
people and connect with them, you risk falling

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into a career where there is too much routine 
and not enough human interaction, and so on.

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We can see that knowing ourselves can make our 
lives much happier, but deeper than that, knowing

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ourselves can put us in much more control of our 
life. When we know all of our weaknesses, then we

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can predict when these weaknesses will show up and 
we can mitigate their impact. For example, if you

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suffer from nerves when public speaking then you 
can practice simple techniques like remembering

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simple cues that you can easily recall to 
prompt you at points you get know you get stuck,

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looking over the audience, not at them while 
strongly visualizing your practice until it

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feels like practice, if only for a moment, or 
even just pausing and taking a deep breath.

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Knowing yourself is a long process and 
it requires getting some life experience.

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There will be painful episodes - it’s all part of 
the process and often the best way to learn more

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about your true self. In order to properly 
learn from the life events you go through,

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you need to make sure that at the end of each day, 
you revise the day, meditate over the events that

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happened and how you reacted, on the things you 
did well and those you didn’t, and to understand

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the reasons why. Through many such iterations, you 
will start to learn more and more about yourself

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and, based on this knowledge you gather, you 
will create methods and strategies to mitigate

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your weaknesses, better preparing you for future 
events and gaining more control over yourself

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and of your life. Or, as Socrates so simply put 
it - “The unexamined life is not worth living”.

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