Plato Quotes
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Everything desires not like but unlike: for example, the dry desires the moist, the cold the hot, the bitter the sweet, the sharp the blunt, the void the full, the full the void, and so of all other things; for the opposite is the food of the opposite, whereas like receives like receives nothing from like.
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Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity - I mean the true simplicity of a rightly and nobly ordered mind and character, not that other simplicity which is only a euphemism for folly.
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The greatest wealth is to live content with little.
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Do not expect justice where might is right.
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All well bred men should have mastered the art of singing and dancing.
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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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The ultimate design of the Mysteries ... was to lead us back to the principles from which we descended, ... a perfect enjoyment of intellectual [spiritual] good.
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The gods' service is tolerable, man's intolerable.
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Music is a more potent instrument than any other for education.
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Vision, in my view, is the cause of the greatest benefit to us, inasmuch as none of the accounts now given concerning the Universe would ever have been given if men had not seen the stars or the sun or the heavens. But as it is, the vision of day and night and of months and circling years has created the art of number and has given us not only the notion of Time but also means of research into the nature of the Universe. From these we have procured Philosophy in all its range, than which no greater boon ever has come or will come, by divine bestowal, unto the race of mortals.
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No one punishes the evil-doer under the notion, or for the reason, that he has done wrong -- only the unreasonable fury of a beast acts in that way. But he who desires to inflict rational punishment does not retaliate for a past wrong, for that which is done cannot be undone, but he has regard to the future, and is desirous that the man who is punished, and he who sees him punished, may be deterred from doing wrong again.
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Art has no end but its own perfection.
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...there are some who are naturally fitted for philosophy and political leadership, while the rest should follow their lead and let philosophy alone.
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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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Our love for our children springs from the soul's greatest yearning for immortality.
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I do believe that there are gods, and in a far higher sense than that in which any of my accusers believe in them.
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A State would be happy where philosophers were kings, or kings philosophers.
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May I do to others as I would that they should do unto me.
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Necessity, who is the mother of our invention.
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You need some knowledge to recognize knowledge, so where does the first knowledge come from?
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He is unworthy of the name of man who is ignorant of the fact that the diagonal of a square is incommensurable with its side.
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Give me a different set of mothers and I will give you a different world.
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Thinking is the soul talking to itself.
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In order to seek one's own direction, one must simplify the mechanics of ordinary, everyday life.