Plato Quotes
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If anyone comes to the gates of poetry and expects to become an adequate poet by acquiring expert knowledge of the subject without the Muses' madness, he will fail, and his self-controlled verses will be eclipsed by the poetry of men who have been driven out of their minds.
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Serious things cannot be understood without laughable things, nor opposites at all without opposites.
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Love is the joy of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the gods; desired by those who have no part in him, and precious to those who have the better part in him.
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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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At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.
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When you admonish a wrongdoer, do so gently, that it may not lead to hostility.
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Most people affirm pleasure to be the good, but the finer sort of wits say it is knowledge.
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Is it not true that the clever rogue is like the runner who runs well for the first half of the course, but flags before reaching the goal: he is quick off the mark, but ends in disgrace and slinks away crestfallen and uncrowned. The crown is the prize of the really good runner who perseveres to the end.
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Mob rule and emasculation of the wise' and 'who will watch the guardians'?
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How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state?
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Prefer diligence before idleness, unless you esteem rust above brightness.
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My plainness of speech makes people hate me, and what is their hatred but a proof that I am speaking the truth.
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Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another.
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He who steals a little steals with the same wish as he who steals much, but with less power.
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Our object in the construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class.
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Music gives wings to the mind and flight to the imagination.
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We do not learn; and what we call learning is only a process of recollection.
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Science is nothing but perception.
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When I hear a man discoursing of virtue, or of any sort of wisdom, who is a true man and worthy of his theme, I am delighted beyond measure: and I compare the man and his words, and note the harmony and correspondence of them. And such an one I deem to be the true musician, having in himself a fairer harmony than that of the lyre.
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If you ask: What is the good of education? The answer is easy: Education makes good men and good men act nobly.
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From a short-sided view, the whole moving contents of the heavens seemed to them a parcel of stones, earth and other soul-less bodies, though they furnish the sources of the world order.
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When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income.
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Honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty.
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Hereditary honors are a noble and a splendid treasure to descendants.