Plato Quotes
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For a poet is a light and winged thing, and holy, and never able to compose until he has become inspired, and is beside himself, and reason is no longer in him.
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Death is not the worst that can happen to men.
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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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People too smart to get involved in politics are doomed to live in societies run by people who aren't.
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Not only is the old man twice a child, but also the man who is drunk.
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The love of the gods belongs to anyone who has given to true virtue and nourished it, and if any human being could become immortal, it would be he.
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For when there are no words, it is very difficult to recognize the meaning of the harmony and rhythm, or to see any worldly object is imitated by them.
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I am about to die, and that is the hour in which men are gifted with prophetic power.
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Great parts produce great vices as well as virtues.
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The cause of all sins in every case lies in the person's excessive love of self.
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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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Any peace is better than any war.
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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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Physical excellence does not of itself produce a good mind and character: on the other hand, excellence of mind and character will make the best of the physique it is given.
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And is there anything more closely connected with wisdom than truth?
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A fit of laughter, which has been indulged to excess, almost always produces a violent reaction.
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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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He who can properly define and divide is to be considered a god.
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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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False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.
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Man is a wingless animal with two feet and flat nails.
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Honesty is for the most par less profitable than dishonesty.
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If anyone comes to the gates of poetry and expects to become an adequate poet by acquiring expert knowledge of the subject without the Muses' madness, he will fail, and his self-controlled verses will be eclipsed by the poetry of men who have been driven out of their minds.
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The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.