Plato Quotes
-
Arithmetic is a kind of knowledge in which the best natures should be trained, and which must not be given up.
-
The first step in learning is the destruction of human conceit.
-
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?
-
Thinking: the talking of the soul with itself.
-
No town can live peacefully whatever its laws when its citizens do nothing but feast and drink and tire themselves out in the cares of love.
-
For the poets tell us, don't they, that the melodies they bring us are gathered from rills that run with honey, out of glens and gardens of the Muses, and they bring them as bees do honey, flying like the bees? And what they say is true, for a poet is a light and winged thing, and holy, and never able to compose until he has become inspired, and is beside himself, and reason is no longer in him. So long as he has this in his possession, no man is able to make poetry or to chant in prophecy.
-
Some thoughtlessly proclaim the Muses nine: A tenth is Sappho, maid divine.
-
Our object in the construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class.
-
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.
-
The true lover of knowledge naturally strives for truth, and is not content with common opinion, but soars with undimmed and unwearied passion till he grasps the essential nature of things.
-
Most people affirm pleasure to be the good, but the finer sort of wits say it is knowledge.
-
The mere athlete becomes too much of a savage.
-
The bees can abide no drones amongst them; but as soon as they begin to be idle, they kill them.
-
I don't know anything that gives me greater pleasure, or profit either, than talking or listening to philosophy. But when it comes to ordinary conversation, such as the stuff you talk about financiers and the money market, well, I find it pretty tiresome personally, and I feel sorry that my friends should think they're being very busy when they're really doing absolutely nothing. Of course, I know your idea of me: you think I'm just a poor unfortunate, and I shouldn't wonder if your right. But then I dont THINK that you're unfortunate - I know you are.
-
Honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty.
-
Mob rule and emasculation of the wise' and 'who will watch the guardians'?
-
From all wild beasts, a child is the most difficult to handle.
-
He who steals a little steals with the same wish as he who steals much, but with less power.
-
Then the lover, who is true and no counterfeit, must of necessity be loved by his love.
-
Prefer diligence before idleness, unless you esteem rust above brightness.
-
Those who are not schooled and practised in truth [who are not honest and upright men] can never manage aright the government, nor yet can those who spend their lives as closet philosophers; because the former have no high purpose to guide their actions, while the latter keep aloof from public life.
-
A delightful form of government, anarchic and motley, assigning a kind of equality indiscriminately to equals and unequals alike!
-
Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another.
-
When man is not properly trained, he is the most savage animal on the face of the globe.