Wladyslaw Szpilman and Socrates were both men of great wisdom and knowledge who led lives filled with sorrow due to the ignorance of the masses. Szpilman had his family torn from him and his lustrous career as a pianist destroyed by the Nazi army. Socrates is one of the greatest philosophers ever to live and his life was cut sadly short by the fear of the Greek government. In light of the tremendous injustices faced by each man, Socrates best expressed “humility as the starting point of ethics”. Socrates’ wisdom came from his humility, he was humble enough to admit that, as humans, we are not wise; people just give off the illusion that they are wise. Socrates was the first person to realize that humans could be wise in tasks such as carpentry
