Plato Quotes
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Death is not the worst that can happen to men.
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The love, more especially, which is concerned with the good, and which is perfected in company with temperance and justice, whether among gods or men, has the greatest power, and is the source of all our happiness and harmony, and makes us friends with the gods who are above us, and with one another.
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And if we are good, we are beneficent: for all good things are beneficial. Are they not?
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Education is the constraining and directing of youth towards that right reason, which the law affirms, and which the experience of the best of our elders has agreed to be truly right.
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A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers.
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Knowledge without justice ought to be called cunning rather than wisdom.
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And the first step, as you know, is always what matters most, particularly when we are dealing with those who are young and tender. That is the time when they are taking shape and when any impression we choose to make leaves a permanent mark.
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Man is a biped without feathers.
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There is no such thing as a lovers' oath.
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We ought to live sacrificing, and singing, and dancing.
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Not to help justice in her need would be an impiety.
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Money-makers are tiresome company, as they have no standard but cash value.
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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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Athenian men, I respect and love you, but I shall obey the god rather than you.
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No attempt should be made to cure the body without the soul.
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Philosophy begins in wonder.
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I know too well that these arguments from probabilities are imposters, and unless great caution is observed in the use of them, they are apt to be deceptive.
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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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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 was stupid enough to think that we ought to speak the truth about each person eulogised, and to make this the foundation, and from these truths to choose the most beautiful things and arrange them in the most elegant way; and I was quite proud to think how well I should speak, because I believed that I knew the truth.
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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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And what shall he suffer who slays him who of all men, as they say, is his own best friend? I mean the suicide, who deprives himself by violence of his appointed share of life. Not because the law of the state requires him. Nor yet under the compulsion of some painful and inevitable misfortune which has come upon him. Nor because he has had to suffer from irremediable and intolerable shame, but who from sloth or want of manliness imposes upon himself an unjust penalty.
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For though a man should be a complete unbeliever in the being of gods; if he also has a native uprightness of temper, such persons will detest evil in men; their repugnance to wrong disinclines them to commit wrongful acts; they shun the unrighteous and are drawn to the upright.
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Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety.