Plato Quotes
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We are like people looking for something they have in their hands all the time; we're looking in all directions except at the thing we want, which is probably why we haven't found it.
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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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Too much attention to health is a hindrance to learning, to invention, and to studies of any kind, for we are always feeling suspicious shootings and swimmings in our heads, and we are prone to blame studies from them.
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I'm trying to think, don't confuse me with facts.
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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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A library of wisdom, is more precious than all wealth, and all things that are desirable cannot be compared to it. Whoever therefore claims to be zealous of truth, of happiness, of wisdom or knowledge, must become a lover of books.
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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 laws of democracy remain a dead letter, its freedom is anarchy, its equality the equality of unequals.
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Friends should have all things in common.
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Let no one destitute of geometry enter my doors.
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... for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves.
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My good friend, you are a citizen of Athens, a city which is very great and very famous for its wisdom and power - are you not ashamed of caring so much for the making of money and for fame and prestige, when you neither think nor care about wisdom and truth and the improvement of your soul?
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What a poor appearance the tales of poets make when stripped of the colours which music puts upon them, and recited in simple prose.
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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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Are these things good for any other reason except that they end in pleasure, and get rid of and avert pain? Are you looking to any other standard but pleasure and pain when you call them good?
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Mathematics is like draughts in being suitable for the young, not too difficult, amusing, and without peril to the state.
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Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.
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Necessity is literally the mother of invention.
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The soul takes nothing with her to the other world but her education and culture; and these, it is said, are of the greatest service or of the greatest injury to the dead man, at the very beginning of his journey hither.
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For as there are misanthropists, or haters of men, there are also misologists, or haters of ideas, and both spring from the same cause, which is ignorance of the world.
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No attempt of curing the body should be made without curing the soul.
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The first and the best victory is to conquer self.
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He who has followed the path of love's initiation in the proper order will on arriving at the end suddenly perceive a marvelous beauty, the source of all our efforts.
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Being well satisfied that, for a man who thinks himself to be somebody, there is nothing more disgraceful than to hold himself up as honored, not on his own account, but for the sake of his forefathers. Yet hereditary honors are a noble and splendid treasure to descendants.