Plato Quotes
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Wise men speak because they have something to say.
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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.
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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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All knowledge is but remembrance.
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Prefer diligence before idleness, unless you esteem rust above brightness.
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Whenever a person strives, by the help of dialectic, to start in pursuit of every reality by a simple process of reason, independent of all sensuous information - never flinching, until by an act of the pure intelligence he has grasped the real nature of good - he arrives at the very end of the intellectual world.
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When the mind is thinking it is talking to itself.
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He seemeth to be most ignorant that trusteth most to his wit.
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I do not live to play, but I play in order that I may live, and return with greater zest to the labors of life.
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I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows.
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Nothing is more unworthy of a wise man, or ought to trouble him more, than to have allowed more time for trifling, and useless things, than they deserve.
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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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Let nobody speak mischief of anybody.
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No human thing is of serious importance.
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There are three arts which are concerned with all things: one which uses, another which makes, and a third which imitates them.
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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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The greatest penalty of evil-doing is to grow into the likeness of bad men, and, growing like them, to fly from the conversation of the good, and be cut off from them, and cleave to and follow after the company of the bad.
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Self conquest is the greatest of victories.
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The cure of the part should not be attempted without the cure of the whole.
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Love' is the name for our pursuit of wholeness, for our desire to be complete.
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For the poet is a light winged and holy thing, and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his senses and the mind is no longer with him. When he has not attained this state he is powerless and unable to utter his oracles.
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If there were only some way of contriving that a state or an army should be made up of lovers and their beloved, they would be the very best governors of their own city, abstaining from all dishonour, and emulating one another in honour; and when fighting at each other's side, although a mere handful, they would overcome the world. For what lover would not choose rather to be seen by all mankind than by his beloved, either when abandoning his post or throwing away his arms? He would be ready to die a thousand deaths rather than endure this.
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Truth is its own reward.
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He, O men, is the wisest, who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing.