Plato Quotes
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To the rulers of the state then, if to any, it belongs of right to use falsehood, to deceive either enemies or their own citizens, for the good of the state: and no one else may meddle with this privilege.
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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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When a person supposes that he knows, and does not know; this appears to be the great source of all the errors of the intellect.
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Better a little which is well done, than a great deal imperfectly.
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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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Justice is nothing more than the advantage of the stronger.
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Books are immortal sons deifying their sires.
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Evil is the vulgar lover who loves the body rather than the soul, inasmuch as he is not even stable, because he loves a thing which is in itself unstable, and therefore when the bloom of youth which he was desiring is over, he takes wing and flies away, in spite of all his words and promises; whereas the love of the noble disposition is life-long, for it becomes one with the everlasting.
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Wisdom alone is the science of other sciences.
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In the world of knowledge, the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with effort.
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And isn't it a bad thing to be deceived about the truth, and a good thing to know what the truth is? For I assume that by knowing the truth you mean knowing things as they really are.
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Madness is a divine release of the soul from the yoke of custom and convention.
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True friendship can exist only between equals.
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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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He whom loves touches not walks in darkness.
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Fly from the company of the wicked--fly and turn not back.
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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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Injustice is censured because the censures are afraid of suffering, and not from any fear which they have of doing injustice.
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A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers.
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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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No one is so cowardly that Love could not inspire him to heroism.
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... Societies aren t made of sticks and stones, but of men whose individual characters, by turning the scale one way or another, determine the direction of the whole.
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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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Conversion is not implanting eyes, for they exist already; but giving them a right direction, which they have not.