Plato Quotes
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Conversion is not implanting eyes, for they exist already; but giving them a right direction, which they have not.
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Madness is a divine release of the soul from the yoke of custom and convention.
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The rulers of the state are the only persons who ought to have the privilege of lying, either at home or abroad; they may be allowed to lie for the good of the state.
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If one sins against the laws of proportion and gives something too big to something too small to carry it - too big sails to too small a ship, too big meals to too small a body, too big powers to too small a soul - the result is bound to be a complete upset. In an outburst of hubris the overfed body will rush into sickness, while the jack-in-office will rush into the unrighteousness that hubris always breeds.
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Lessons, however, that enter the soul against its will never grow roots and will never be preserved inside it.
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At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.
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It is not noble to return evil for evil, at no time ought we to do an injury to our neighbors.
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Discordance is evil. Harmony is virtue.
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Mankind will never see an end of trouble until lovers of wisdom come to hold political power, or the holders of power become lovers of wisdom.
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We are too feeble and sluggish to make our way out to the upper limit of the air. If someone could reach the summit, or put on wings and fly aloft, when he put up his head he would see the world above, just as fishes see our world when they put up their heads out of the sea; and if his nature were able to bear the sight, he would recognize that that is the true heaven.
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No one is so cowardly that Love could not inspire him to heroism.
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No trace of slavery ought to mix with the studies of the freeborn man. No study, pursued under compulsion, remains rooted in the memory.
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Because it is correct to make a priority of young people, taking care that they turn out as well as possible.
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Much sleep is not required by nature, either for our souls or bodies, or for the action in which they are concerned.
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Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood let alone believed by the masses.
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The elements of instruction should be presented to the mind in childhood, but not with any compulsion.
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Man is the plumeless genus of bipeds, birds are the plumed.
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Neither do the ignorant love wisdom or desire to become wise; for this is the grievous thing about ignorance, that those who are neither good nor beautiful think they are good enough, and do not desire that which they do not think they are lacking.
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Before all it's necessary to look after the Soul, if you want the head and the rest of the body to function correctly.
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Shall we not, then, lay down a law, in the first place, that boys shall abstain altogether from wine till their eighteenth year, thereby teaching that it is wrong to add fire to fire, as through a funnel, pouring it into their body and soul before they proceed to the labor of life, thus exercising a caution as to the maddening habits of youth.
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The man who hath music in his soul will be most in love with the loveliest.
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Putting the shoe on the wrong foot.
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If you think your child's academic studies are more important than the arts, think again.
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There are some whom the applause of the multitude has deluded into the belief that they are really statesmen.