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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.
Plato -
A grateful mind is a great mind which eventually attracts to itself great things.
Plato
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To be at once exceedingly wealthy and good is impossible.
Plato -
Justice is nothing more than the advantage of the stronger.
Plato -
Nothing in human affairs is worth any great anxiety.
Plato -
My love, Alcibiades, which I hardly like to confess, would long ago have passed away, as I flatter myself, if I saw you loving your good things, or thinking that you ought to pass life in the enjoyment of them.
Plato -
The one who learns and learns and doesn't practice is like the one who plows and plows and never plants.
Plato -
Friends have all things in common.
Plato
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The rulers of the state are the only persons who ought to have the privilege of lying, either at home or abroad; they may be allowed to lie for the good of the state.
Plato -
Wisdom is a blaze, kindled by a leaping spark.
Plato -
Such, Echecrates, was the end of our comrade, who was, we may fairly say, of all those whom we knew in our time, the bravest and also the wisest and most upright man.
Plato -
All things are in fate, yet all things are not decreed by fate.
Plato -
And isn't it a bad thing to be deceived about the truth, and a good thing to know what the truth is? For I assume that by knowing the truth you mean knowing things as they really are.
Plato -
SOCRATES: Perhaps we may be wrong; if so, you in your wisdom should convince us that we are mistaken in preferring justice to injustice. THRASYMACHUS: And how am I to convince you, he said, if you are not already convinced by what I have just said; what more can I do for you? Would you have me put the proof bodily into your souls?
Plato
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They would be subject to no one, neither to lawful ruler nor to the reign of law, but would be altogether and absolutely free. That is the way they got their tyrants, for either servitude or freedom, when it goes to extremes, is an utter bane, while either in due measure is altogether a boon.
Plato -
Homosexuality is regarded as shameful by barbarians and by those who live under despotic governments just as philosophy is regarded as shameful by them, because it is apparently not in the interest of such rulers to have great ideas engendered in their subjects, or powerful friendships or passionate love - all of which homosexuality is particularly apt to produce.
Plato -
We see many instances of cities going down like sinking ships to their destruction. There have been such wrecks in the past and there surely will be others in the future, caused by the wickedness of captains and crews alike. For these are guilty men, whose sin is supreme ignorance of what matters most.
Plato -
The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the government of worse men.
Plato -
Injustice is censured because the censures are afraid of suffering, and not from any fear which they have of doing injustice.
Plato -
The orators - and the despots - have the least power in their cities … since they do nothing that they wish to do, practically speaking, though they do whatever they think to be best.
Plato
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Because, unlike courage and wisdom, which made our state brave and wise by being present in a particular part of it, discipline operates by being diffused throughout the whole of it. It produces a concord between its strongest and weakest and middle elements, whether you define them by the standard of good sense, or of strength, or of numbers or money or the like. And so we are quite justified in regarding discipline as this sort of natural harmony and agreement between higher and lower about which of them is to rule in state and individual.
Plato -
Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous.
Plato -
Arguments derived from probabilities are idle.
Plato -
To escape from evil we must be made as far as possible like God; and the resemblance consists in becoming just and holy and wise.
Plato