Plato Quotes
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That man is wisest who, like Socrates, realizes that his wisdom is worthless.
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Courage is a kind of salvation.
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Self conquest is the greatest of victories.
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Hereditary honors are a noble and a splendid treasure to descendants.
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A man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong - acting the part of a good man or of a bad.
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Ignorance of all things is an evil neither terrible nor excessive, nor yet the greatest of all; but great cleverness and much learning, if they be accompanied by a bad training, are a much greater misfortune.
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Desires are only the lack of something: and those who have the greatest desires are in a worse condition than those who have none, or very slight ones.
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Do thine own work, and know thyself.
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If particulars are to have meaning, there must be universals.
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When I hear a man discoursing of virtue, or of any sort of wisdom, who is a true man and worthy of his theme, I am delighted beyond measure: and I compare the man and his words, and note the harmony and correspondence of them. And such an one I deem to be the true musician, having in himself a fairer harmony than that of the lyre.
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The wise man will want to be ever with him who is better than himself.
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He who steals a little steals with the same wish as he who steals much, but with less power.
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I have good hope that there is something after death.
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The penalty that good men pay for not being interested in politics is to be governed by men worse than themselves.
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In a democracy only will the freeman of nature design to dwell.
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They ought to be gentle to their friends and dangerous to their enemies.
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Not only is the old man twice a child, but also the man who is drunk.
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No one ever teaches well who wants to teach, or governs well who wants to govern.
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Those who refuse to engage in politics will be led by their inferiors.
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For neither does wealth bring honour to the owner, if he be a coward; of such a one the wealth belongs to another, and not to himself. Nor does beauty and strength of body, when dwelling in a base and cowardly man, appear comely, but the reverse of comely, making the possessor more conspicuous, and manifesting forth his cowardice.
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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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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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Poverty doesn't come because of the decrease of wealth but because of the increase of desires.
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When two friends are in the mood to chat, we have to go about it in a gentler and more dialectical way. By 'more dialectical,' I mean not only that we give real responses, but that we base our responses solely on what the interlocutor admits that he himself knows.