Plato Quotes
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Everything changes and nothing remains still.
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Everything that deceives may be said to enchant.
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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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There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands.
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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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Laws are partly formed for the sake of good men, in order to instruct them how they may live on friendly terms with one another, and partly for the sake of those who refuse to be instructed, whose spirit cannot be subdued, or softened, or hindered from plunging into evil.
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People too smart to get involved in politics are doomed to live in societies run by people who aren't.
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I must yield to you, for you are irresistible.
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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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So the nature required to make a really noble Guardian of our commonwealth will be swift and strong, spirited, and philosophic.
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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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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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People are like dirt. They can either nourish you and help you grow as a person or they can stunt your growth and make you wilt and die.
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No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.
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If we are to keep our flock at the highest pitch of excellence, there should be as many unions of the best of both sexes, and as few of the inferior as possible, and that only the offspring of the better unions should be kept.
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A delightful form of government, anarchic and motley, assigning a kind of equality indiscriminately to equals and unequals alike!
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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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The wisest have the most authority.
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Observe that open loves are held to be more honourable than secret ones, and that the love of the noblest and highest, even if their persons are less beautiful than others, is especially honourable.
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Even in reaching for the beautiful there is beauty, and also in suffering whatever it is that one suffers en route.
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Some thoughtlessly proclaim the Muses nine: A tenth is Sappho, maid divine.
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That a guardian should require another guardian to take care of him is ridiculous indeed.
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To do injustice is more disgraceful than to suffer it.
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Serious things cannot be understood without laughable things, nor opposites at all without opposites.