Plato Quotes
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The man who arrives at the doors of artistic creation with none of the madness of the Muses would be convinced that technical ability alone was enough to make an artist... what that man creates by means of reason will pale before the art of inspired beings.
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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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But that we shall be better and braver and less helpless if we think that we ought to enquire, than we should have been if we indulged in the idle fancy that there was no knowing and no use in seeking to know what we do not know; - that is a theme upon which I am ready to fight, in word and deed, to the utmost of my power.
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Wherever it has been established that it is shameful to be involved with sexual relationships with men, that is due to evil on the part of the rulers, and to cowardice on the part of the governed.
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I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.
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The learning and knowledge that we have, is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant.
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The State which we have founded must possess the four cardinal virtues of wisdom, courage, discipline and justice ... Justice is the principle which has in fact been followed throughout, the principle of one man one job, of minding one s own business , in the sense of doing the job for which one is naturally fitted and not interfering with other people.
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Philosophy begins in wonder.
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It is right to give every man his due.
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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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He who gives himself to a lover because he is a good man, and in the hope that he will be improved by his company, shows himself to be virtuous, even though the object of his affection turn out to be a villain, and to have no virtue; and if he is deceived he has committed a noble error. For he has proved that for his part he will do anything for anybody with a view to virtue and improvement, than which there can be nothing nobler.
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You must base the Wisdom on Love.
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The eyes of the soul of the multitudes are unable to endure the vision of the divine.
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A dog has the soul of a philosopher.
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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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Lust is inseparably accompanied with the troubling of all order, with impudence, unseemliness, sloth, and dissoluteness.
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Either we shall find what it is we are seeking or at least we shall free ourselves from the persuasion that we know what we do not know.
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There is no necessity for the man who means to be an orator to understand what is really just but only what would appear so to the majority of those who will give judgment; and not what is really good or beautiful but whatever will appear so; because persuasion comes from that and not from the truth.
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Mathematics is the language in which the gods talk to people.
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One trait in the philosopher's character we can assume is his love of the knowledge that reveals eternal reality, the realm unaffected by change and decay.
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Those who have knowledge are more confident than those who have no knowledge, and they are more confident after they have learned than before.
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Justice in the individual is now defined analogously to justice in the state. The individual is wise and brave in virtue of his reason and spirit respectively: he is disciplined when spirit and appetite are in proper subordination to reason. He is just in virtue of the harmony which exists when all three elements of the mind perform their proper function and so achieve their proper fulfillment; he is unjust when no such harmony exists.
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The life which is not examined is not worth living.
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He who can properly define and divide is to be considered a god.