Plato Quotes
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Those wretches who never have experienced the sweets of wisdom and virtue, but spend all their time in revels and debauches, sink downward day after day, and make their whole life one continued series of errors.
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No one can escape his destiny.
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How well I remember the aged poet Sophocles, when in answer to the question, "How does love suit with age, Sophocles - are you still the man you were?" he replied, "Peace, most gladly have I escaped the thing of which you speak; I feel as if I had escaped from a mad and furious master."
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Nothing can be more absurd than the practice that prevails in our country of men and women not following the same pursuits with all their strengths and with one mind, for thus, the state instead of being whole is reduced to half.
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If we are to have any hope for the future, those who have lanterns must pass them on to others.
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The function of the wing is to take what is heavy and raise it up in the region above.
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For not by art does the poet sing, but by power divine. Had he learned by rules of art, he would have known how to speak not of one theme only, but of all; and therefore God takes away the minds of poets, and uses them as his ministers, as he also uses diviners and holy prophets, in order that we who hear them may know them to be speaking not of themselves who utter these priceless words in a state of unconsciousness, but that God himself is the speaker, and that through them he is conversing with us.
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There are some whom the applause of the multitude has deluded into the belief that they are really statesmen.
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There are three arts which are concerned with all things: one which uses, another which makes, and a third which imitates them.
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For just as poets love their own works, and fathers their own children, in the same way those who have created a fortune value their money, not merely for its uses, like other persons, but because it is their own production. This makes them moreover disagreeable companions, because they will praise nothing but riches.
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I shall never alter my ways, not even if I have to die many times.
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Putting the shoe on the wrong foot.
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The proud man is forsaken of God.
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May I deem the wise man rich, and may I have such a portion of gold as none but a prudent man can either bear or employ.
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Of all the Gods, Love is the best friend of humankind, the helper and healer of all ills that stand in the way of human happiness.
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Everything changes and nothing remains still.
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They would be subject to no one, neither to lawful ruler nor to the reign of law, but would be altogether and absolutely free. That is the way they got their tyrants, for either servitude or freedom, when it goes to extremes, is an utter bane, while either in due measure is altogether a boon.
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Whenever a person strives, by the help of dialectic, to start in pursuit of every reality by a simple process of reason, independent of all sensuous information - never flinching, until by an act of the pure intelligence he has grasped the real nature of good - he arrives at the very end of the intellectual world.
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The greatest penalty of evil-doing is to grow into the likeness of a bad man.
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So their combinations with themselves and with each other give rise to endless complexities, which anyone who is to give a likely account of reality must survey.
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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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I really do not know, Socrates, how to express what I mean. For somehow or other our arguments, on whatever ground we rest them, seem to turn round and walk away from us.
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Prefer diligence before idleness, unless you esteem rust above brightness.
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In an honest man there is always something of a child.