Plato Quotes
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Just as bees make honey from thyme, the strongest and driest of herbs, so do the wise profit from the most difficult of experiences.
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You can remember, a single deluge only, but there were many previous ones.
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It is fear and terror that make all men brave, except the philosophers. Yet it is illogical to be brave through fear and cowardice.
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Man's music is seen as a means of restoring the soul, as well as confused and discordant bodily afflictions, to the harmonic proportions that it shares with the world soul of the cosmos.
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Let no one ignorant of Mathematics enter here.
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Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men.
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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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In politics we presume that everyone who knows how to get votes knows how to administer a city or a state. When we are ill... we do not ask for the handsomest physician, or the most eloquent one.
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Virtue is voluntary, vice involuntary.
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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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So the state founded on natural principles is wise as a whole in virtue of the knowledge inherent in its smallest constituent class, which exercises authority over the rest. And the smallest class is the one which naturally possesses that form of knowledge which alone of all others deserves the title of wisdom.
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And may we not say, Adeimantus, that the most gifted minds, when they are ill- educated, become the worst?
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Neither human wisdom nor divine inspiration can confer upon man any greater blessing than this live a life of happiness and harmony here on earth.
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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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Ignorance is the root cause of all difficulties.
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The power of the Good has taken refuge in the nature of the Beautiful.
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In one sense it is evident that the art of kingship does include the art of lawmaking. But the political ideal is not full authority for laws but rather full authority for a man who understands the art of kingship and has kingly ability.
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Many men are loved by their enemies, and hated by their friends, and are the friends of their enemies, and the enemies of their friends.
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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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It is right to give every man his due.
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Philosophy begins in wonder.
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Give me a different set of mothers and I will give you a different world.
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When the mind's eye rests on objects illuminated by truth and reality, it understands and comprehends them, and functions intelligently; but when it turns to the twilight world of change and decay, it can only form opinions, its vision is confused and its beliefs shifting, and it seems to lack intelligence.
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Wisdom always makes men fortunate: for by wisdom no man could ever err, and therefore he must act rightly and succeed, or his wisdom would be wisdom no longer.