Plato Quotes
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The curse of me and my nation is that we always think things can be bettered by immediate action of some sort, any sort rather than no sort.
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That which is apprehended by intelligence and reason is always in the same state; but that which is conceived by opinion with the help of sensation and without reason, is always in a process of becoming and perishing and never really is.
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What is at issue is the conversion of the mind from the twilight of error to the truth, that climb up into the real world which we shall call true philosophy.
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Every serious man in dealing with really serious subjects carefully avoids writing. ... There does not exist, nor will there ever exist, any writing of mine dealing with this subject.
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The true runner comes to the finish and receives the prize and is crowned.
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Take a look around, then, and see that none of the uninitiated are listening. Now by the uninitiated I mean the people who believe in nothing but what they can grasp in their hands, and who will not allow that action or generation or anything invisible can have real existence.
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Let him know how to choose the mean and avoid the extremes on either side, as far as possible. . . . For this is the way of happiness.
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Man is a prisoner who has no right to open the door of his prison and run away... A man should wait, and not take his own life until God summons him.
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I fast for greater physical and mental efficiency.
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Knowledge is the rediscovering of our own insight.
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For he who would proceed aright... should begin in youth to visit beautiful forms... out of that he should create fair thoughts; and soon he will of himself perceive that the beauty of one form is akin to the beauty of another, and that beauty in every form is one and the same.
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The wisdom of men is worth little or nothing.
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Seven years of silent inquiry are needful for a man to learn the truth, but fourteen in order to learn how to make it known to his fellow-men.
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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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Watch a man at play for an hour and you can learn more about him than in talking to him for a year.
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Who are the true philosophers? Those whose passion is to love the truth.
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[Not enough is known about solid geometry] and for two reasons: in the first place, no government places value on it; this leads to a lack of energy in the pursuit of it, and it is difficult. In the second place, students cannot learn it unless they have a teacher. But then a teacher can hardly be found.
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Love is simply the name for the desire and pursuit of the whole.
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Courage is knowing what to fear.
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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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Hardly any human being is capable of pursuing two professions or two arts rightly.
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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. He is in love with the whole of that reality, and will not willingly be deprived even of the most insignificant fragment of it - just like the lovers and men of ambition we described earlier on.
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Socrates said that, from above, the Earth looks like one of those twelve-patched leathern balls.
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Wonder is the beginning of the desire to know the beautiful and the good.