Plato Quotes
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Arithmetic has a very great and elevating effect, compelling the soul to reason about abstract number, and rebelling against the introduction of visible or tngible objects into the argument.
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The people always have some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness. ... This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.
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It is clear to everyone that astronomy at all events compels the soul to look upwards, and draws it from the things of this world to the other.
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He who is only an athlete is too crude, too vulgar, too much a savage. He who is a scholar only is too soft, to effeminate. The ideal citizen is the scholar athlete, the man of thought and the man of action.
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Wealth and poverty; one is the parent of luxury and indolence, and the other of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent.
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The judge should not be young, he should have learned to know evil, not from his own soul, but from late and long observation of the nature of evil in others.
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I do not think it is permitted that a better man be harmed by a worse.
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Ignorance: the root of all evil.
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There is no such thing as a lovers' oath.
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People are like dirt. They can either nourish you and help you grow as a person or they can stunt your growth and make you wilt and die.
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For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories... The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile.
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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.
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What is honored in a country will be cultivated there.
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Philosophy begins in wonder.
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Abstinence is the surety of temperance.
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No one ever teaches well who wants to teach, or governs well who wants to govern.
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At the Egyptian city of Naucratis there was a famous old god whose name was Theuth; the bird which is called the Ibis was sacred to him, and he was the inventor of many arts, such as arithmetic and calculation and geometry and astronomy and draughts and dice, but his great discovery was the use of letters.
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...in every man there is an eye of the soul, which...is more precious far than ten thousand bodily eyes, for by it alone is truth seen.
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The democratic youth lives along day by day, gratifying the desire that occurs to him, at one time drinking and listening to the flute, at another downing water and reducing, now practicing gymnastic, and again idling and neglecting everything; and sometimes spending his time as though he were occupied in philosophy.
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The principles are important. First, the interest of the state or society counts for everything, that of the individual for nothing. Second, the only difference between men and women is one of physical function- one begets, the other bears children. Apart from that, they both can and should perform the same functions - though men on a whole, perform them better and should receive the same education to enable them to do so; for in this way society will get the best value from both.
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What is better adapted than the festive use of wine in the first place to test and in the second place to train the character of a man, if care be taken in the use of it? What is there cheaper or more innocent?
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Let nobody speak mischief of anybody.
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Not to help justice in her need would be an impiety.
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Neither do the ignorant love wisdom or desire to become wise; for this is the grievous thing about ignorance, that those who are neither good nor beautiful think they are good enough, and do not desire that which they do not think they are lacking.