Plato Quotes
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Man never legislates, but destinies and accidents, happening in all sorts of ways, legislate in all sorts of ways.
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Music has the capacity to touch the innermost reaches of the soul and music gives flight to the imagination.
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There should exist among the citizens neither extreme poverty nor again excessive wealth, for both are productive of great evil.
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Herein is the evil of ignorance, that he who is neither good nor wise is nevertheless satisfied with himself: he had no desire for that of which he feels no want.
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The wisdom of men is worth little or nothing.
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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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To a good man nothing that happens is evil.
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Those who practice philosophy in the right way are in training for dying and they fear death least of all men.
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There should be no element of slavery in learning. Enforced exercise does no harm to the body, but enforced learning will not stay in the mind. So avoid compulsion, and let your children's lessons take the form of play.
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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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But of the heaven which is above the heavens, what earthly poet ever did or ever will sing worthily?
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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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And all knowledge, when separated from justice and virtue, is seen to be cunning and not wisdom; wherefore make this your first and last and constant and all-absorbing aim, to exceed, if possible, not only us but all your ancestors in virtue; and know that to excel you in virtue only brings us shame, but that to be excelled by you is a source of happiness to us.
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Violent pleasures which reach the soul through the body are generally of this sort-they are reliefs of pain.
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Either death is a state of nothingness and utter consciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and migration of the soul from this world to another. Now if death be of such a nature, I say that to die is to gain; for eternity is then only a single night.
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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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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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Time on its back bears all things far away - Full many a challenge is wrought by many a day - Shape, fortune, name, and nature all decay.
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Love is a grave mental illness.
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To think truly is noble and to be deceived is base.
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Each man is capable of doing one thing well. If he attempts several, he will fail to achieve distinction in any.
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The like is not the friend of the like in as far as he is like; still the good may be the friend of the good in as far as he is good.
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I should not like to say ... that any kind of knowledge is not to be learned; for all knowledge appears to be a good.
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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.