Plato Quotes
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There is also a third kind of madness, which is possession by the Muses, enters into a delicate and virgin soul, and there inspiring frenzy, awakens lyric... But he, who, not being inspired and having no touch of madness in his soul, comes to the door and thinks he will get into the temple by the help of art - he, I say, and his poetry are not admitted; the sane man is nowhere at all when he enters into rivalry with the madman.
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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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When you admonish a wrongdoer, do so gently, that it may not lead to hostility.
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To be sure I must; and therefore I may assume that your silence gives consent.
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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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The tyranny imposed on the soul by anger, or fear, or lust, or pain, or envy, or desire, I generally call 'injustice.'
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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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. . . the triumph of my art is in thoroughly examining whether the thought which the mind of the young man brings forth is a false idol or a noble and true birth.
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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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I must yield to you, for you are irresistible.
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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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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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... 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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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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.. we shall not be properly educated ourselves, nor will the guardians whom we are training, until we can recognise the qualities of discipline, courage, generosity, greatness of mind, and others akin to them, as well as their opposites in all their manifestations.
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As to the artists, do we not know that he only of them whom love inspires has the light of fame?-he whom love touches not walks in darkness.
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The mere athlete becomes too much of a savage.
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No man should bring children into the world who is unwilling to persevere to the end in their nature and education.
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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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Hereditary honors are a noble and a splendid treasure to descendants.
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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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The first step in learning is the destruction of human conceit.
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Arithmetic is a kind of knowledge in which the best natures should be trained, and which must not be given up.
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Those who refuse to engage in politics will be led by their inferiors.