Plato Quotes
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Wonder is the feeling of the philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.
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That man is wisest who, like Socrates, realizes that his wisdom is worthless.
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Seek truth while you are young, for if you do not, it will later escape your grasp.
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Then the lover, who is true and no counterfeit, must of necessity be loved by his love.
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He who is gracious to his lover under the impression that he is rich, and is disappointed of his gains because he turns out to be poor, is disgraced all the same: for he has done his best to show that he would give himself up to any one's "uses base" for the sake of money; but this is not honourable.
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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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And the true order of going, or being led by another, to the things of love, is to begin from the beauties of earth and mount upwards for the sake of that other beauty, using these steps only, and from one going on to two, and from two to all fair forms to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is.
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Virtue is voluntary, vice involuntary.
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Harmony is a symphony, and symphony is an agreement; but an agreement of disagreements while they disagree there cannot be; you cannot harmonize that which disagrees.
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Knowledge of the soul is the only universal truth and the only wisdom - all other knowledge is transient.
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That a guardian should require another guardian to take care of him is ridiculous indeed.
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When the mind is thinking it is talking to itself.
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Then may we not fairly plead in reply that our 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 with the mental faculty fitted to do so, that is, with the faculty which is akin to reality, and which approaches and unites with it, and begets intelligence and truth as children, and is only released from travail when it has thus reached knowledge and true life and satisfaction?
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The only thing worse than suffering an injustice is committing an injustice.
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Death is not the worst that can happen to men.
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A man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong - acting the part of a good man or of a bad.
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As a breath of wind or some echo rebounds from smooth, hard surfaces and returns to the source from which it issued, so the stream of beauty passes back into its possessor through his eyes, which is its natural route to the soul; arriving there and setting him all aflutter, it waters the passages of the feathers and causes the wings to grow, and fills the soul of the loved one in his turn with love.
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O youth or young man, who fancy that you are neglected by the gods, know that if you become worse, you shall go to worse souls, or if better to the better... In every succession of life and death, you will do and suffer what like may fitly suffer at the hands of like. This is the justice of heaven.
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That politician who curries favor with the citizens and indulges them and fawns upon them and has a presentiment of their wishes, and is skillful in gratifying them, he is esteemed a great statesman.
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Would that I were the heaven, that I might be all full of love-lit eyes to gaze on thee.
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I have good hope that there is something after death.
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No soul willfully does wrong.
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Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress, no matter how slow... even if that someone is yourself!
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Wherefore also these Kinds [elements] occupied different places even before the universe was organised and generated out of them. Before that time, in truth, all these were in a state devoid of reason or measure, but when the work of setting in order this Universe was being undertaken, fire and water and earth and air, although possessing some traces of their known nature, were yet disposed as everything is likely to be in the absence of God; and inasmuch as this was then their natural condition, God began by first marking them out into shapes by means of forms and numbers.