Plato Quotes
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There are few people so stubborn in their atheism who, when danger is pressing in, will not acknowledge the divine power.
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Haughtiness lives under the same roof with solitude.
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Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.
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The real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.
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Is there anything worse for a state than to be split and disunited? or anything better than cohesion and unity?
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. . . Then anyone who leaves behind him a written manual, and likewise anyone who receives it, in the belief that such writing will be clear and certain, must be exceedingly simple-minded. . . .
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Socrates: The disgrace begins when a man writes not well, but badly.Phaedrus: Clearly.Socrates: And what is well and what is badly-need we ask Lysias, or any other poet or orator, who ever wrote or will write either a political or any other work, in metre or out of metre, poet or prose writer, to teach us this?
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If it is naturally in you to be a good orator, a notable orator you will be when you have acquired knowledge and practice.
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There still remain three studies suitable for free man. Arithmetic is one of them.
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Virtue is relative to the actions and ages of each of us in all that we do.
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You can't do good if you don't feel good.
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'But surely "blind" is just how you would describe men who have no true knowledge of reality, and no clear standard in their mind to refer to, as a painter refers to his model, and which they can study closely before they start laying down rules about what is fair or right or good where they are needed, or maintaining, as Guardians, any rules that already exist.' 'Yes, blind is just about what they are'
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An hour of play is worth a lifetime of conversation.
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Time is the moving imago of the unmoving eternity.
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Necessity is literally the mother of invention.
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Just as it would be madness to settle on medical treatment for the body of a person by taking an opinion poll of the neighbors, so it is irrational to prescribe for the body politic by polling the opinions of the people at large.
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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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All the gold upon the earth and all the gold beneath it, does not compensate for lack of virtue.
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He that lendeth to another in time of prosperity, shall never want help himself in the time of adversity.
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Love: a grave mental disease.
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Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.
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Love is a madness produced by an unsatisfiable rational desire to understand the ultimate truth about the world.
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The laws of democracy remain a dead letter, its freedom is anarchy, its equality the equality of unequals.
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... the good are not willing to rule either for the sake of money or of honor.