Plato Quotes
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He who wishes to serve his country must have not only the power to think, but the will to act.
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Wonder [said Socrates] is very much the affection of a philosopher; for there is no other beginning of philosophy than this.
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In particular I may mention Sophocles the poet, who was once asked in my presence, How do you feel about love, Sophocles? are you still capable of it? to which he replied, Hush! if you please: to my great delight I have escaped from it, and feel as if I had escaped from a frantic and savage master. I thought then, as I do now, that he spoke wisely. For unquestionably old age brings us profound repose and freedom from this and other passions.
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Every unjust man is unjust against his will.
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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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If particulars are to have meaning, there must be universals.
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Both poverty and wealth, therefore, have a bad effect on the quality of the work and the workman himself. Wealth and poverty, I answered. One produces luxury and idleness and a passion for novelty, the other meanness and bad workmanship and revolution into the bargain.
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Sin is disease, deformity, and weakness.
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A drunkard is unprofitable for any kind of good service.
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You can remember, a single deluge only, but there were many previous ones.
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Life must be lived as play, playing certain games, making sacrifices, singing and dancing, and then a man will be able to propitiate the gods.
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He who love touches walks not in darkness.
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Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety.
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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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Lust is inseparably accompanied with the troubling of all order, with impudence, unseemliness, sloth, and dissoluteness.
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Maximize the power of the beliefs that strengthen you and neutralize those that weaken you.
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He who has knowledge of the just and the good and beautiful ... will not, when in earnest, write them in ink.
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For the rhapsode ought to interpret the mind of the poet to his hearers, but how can he interpret him well unless he knows what he means?
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People regard the same things, some as just and others as unjust, - about these they dispute; and so there arise wars and fightings among them.
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No one should be discouraged, Theaetetus, who can make constant progress, even though it be slow.
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All I really know is the extent of my own ignorance.
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Of all the things of a man's soul which he has within him, justice is the greatest good and injustice the greatest evil.
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Don't quarrel with your parents even if you are on the right.
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Better to complete a small task well, than to do much imperfectly.