Plato Quotes
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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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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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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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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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No soul willfully does wrong.
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The bees can abide no drones amongst them; but as soon as they begin to be idle, they kill them.
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Few men are so obstinate in their atheism, that a pressing danger will not compel them to acknowledgment of a divine power.
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Truth is its own reward.
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When you admonish a wrongdoer, do so gently, that it may not lead to hostility.
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Knowledge without justice ought to be called cunning rather than wisdom.
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When the mind is thinking it is talking to itself.
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Other people are likely not to be aware that those who pursue philosophy aright study nothing but dying and being dead. Now if this is true, it would be absurd to be eager for nothing but this all their lives, and then to be troubled when that came for which they had all along been eagerly practicing.
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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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He, O men, is the wisest, who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing.
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Wealth is well known to be a great comforter.
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Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.
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Justice in the individual is now defined analogously to justice in the state. The individual is wise and brave in virtue of his reason and spirit respectively: he is disciplined when spirit and appetite are in proper subordination to reason. He is just in virtue of the harmony which exists when all three elements of the mind perform their proper function and so achieve their proper fulfillment; he is unjust when no such harmony exists.
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Those who tell the stories rule society.
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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.
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The best stomachs are not those which reject all foods.
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The most important part of education is proper training in the nursery.
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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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Consider how great is the encouragement which all the world gives to the lover; neither is he supposed to be doing anything dishonourable; but if he succeeds he is praised, and if he fail he is blamed.
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Hence it is from the representation of things spoken by means of posture and gesture that the whole of the art of dance has been elaborated.