Plato Quotes
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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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I fast for greater physical and mental efficiency.
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Democracy passes into despotism.
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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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And yet the artist will go on with his work without knowing in some way if any of his representations are sound or unsound. The artist knows nothing worth mentioning about the subjects he represents, and that art is a form of play, not to be taken seriously.
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All well bred men should have mastered the art of singing and dancing.
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According to Diotima, Love is not a god at all, but is rather a spirit that mediates between people and the objects of their desire. Love is neither wise nor beautiful, but is rather the desire for wisdom and beauty.
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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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The natural function of the wing is to soar upwards and carry that which is heavy up to the place where dwells the race of gods. More than any other thing that pertains to the body it partakes of the nature of the divine.
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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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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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The greatest wealth is to live content with little.
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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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Wonder is the beginning of the desire to know the beautiful and the good.
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Since those who rule in the city do so because they own a lot, I suppose they're unwilling to enact laws to prevent young people who've had no discipline from spending and wasting their wealth, so that by making loans to them, secured by the young people's property, and then calling those loans in, they themselves become even richer and more honored.
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The true runner comes to the finish and receives the prize and is crowned.
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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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Love is simply the name for the desire and pursuit of the whole.
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The honour of parents is a fair and noble treasure to their posterity, but to have the use of a treasure of wealth and honour, and to leave none to your successors, because you have neither money nor reputation of your own, is alike base and dishonourable.
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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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Who are the true philosophers? Those whose passion is to love the truth.
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Socrates said that, from above, the Earth looks like one of those twelve-patched leathern balls.
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The wisdom of men is worth little or nothing.