Plato Quotes
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No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew it was the greatest of evils.
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Only the dead have seen the end of war.
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According to Greek mythology, humans were originally created with four arms, four legs and a head with two faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves.
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States are as the men, they grow out of human characters.
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Where it is a general rule that it is wrong to gratify lovers, this can be attributed to the defects of those who make that rule: the government's lust for rule and the subjects' cowardice.
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Love consists in feeling the Sacred One beating inside the loved one.
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It is as expedient that a wicked man be punished as that a sick man be cured by a physician; for all chastisement is a kind of medicine.
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The wolf cares not, how many the sheep be.
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The greatest mistake in the treatment of diseases is that there are physicians for the body and physicians for the soul, although the two cannot be separated.
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And is it not true that in like manner a leader of the people who, getting control of a docile mob, does not withhold his hand from the shedding of tribal blood, but by the customary unjust accusations brings a citizen into court and assassinates him, blotting out a human life, and with unhallowed tongue and lips that have tasted kindred blood, banishes and slays and hints at the abolition of debts and the partition of lands.
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It was Plato, according to Sosigenes, who set this as a problem for those concerned with these things, through what suppositions of uniform and ordered movements the appearances concerning the movements of the wandering heavenly bodies could be preserved.
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He who is learning and learning and doesn't apply what he knows is like the one who is plowing and plowing and doesn't seed.
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Now in this island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire which had rule over the whole island and several others, and over parts of the continent and, furthermore, the men of Atlantis had subjected the parts of Libya within the columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia.This vast power, gathered into one, endeavored to subdue at a blow our country and yours and the whole of the region within the straits, and then, Solon, your country shone forth, in the excellence of her virtue and strength, among all mankind.
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The whole life of the philosopher is a preparation for death.
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When the music changes, the walls of the city shake.
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Our greatest blessings come to us by way of madness, provided the madness is given us by divine gift.
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And we shall most likely be defeated, and you will most likely be victors in the contest, if you learn so to order your lives as not to abuse or waste the reputation of your ancestors, knowing that to a man who has any self-respect, nothing is more dishonourable than to be honoured, not for his own sake, but on account of the reputation of his ancestors.
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The heaviest penalty for deciding to engage in politics is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.
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All things are in fate, yet all things are not decreed by fate.
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Avoid compulsion and let early education be a matter of amusement. Young children learn by games; compulsory education cannot remain in the soul.
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The object of knowledge is what exists and its function to know about reality.
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One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
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Those having torches will pass them on to others.
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Let no-one ignorant of geometry enter. Said to have been inscribed above the door of Plato's Academy.