Plato Quotes
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A democracy is a state in which the poor, gaining the upper hand, kill some and banish others, and then divide the offices among the remaining citizens equally, usually by lot.
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Thinking and spoken discourse are the same thing, except that what we call thinking is, precisely, the inward dialogue carried on by the mind with itself without spoken sound.
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Books are immortal sons deifying their sires.
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Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back.
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Whereas the truth is that the State in which the rulers are most reluctant to govern is always the best and most quietly governed, and the State in which they are most eager, the worst.
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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.
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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 beginning is the most important part of the work.
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A nation will prosper to the degree that it honors it's teachers.
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Lessons, however, that enter the soul against its will never grow roots and will never be preserved inside it.
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He whom Love touches not walks in darkness.
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Mankind censure injustice fearing that they may be the victims of it, and not because they shrink from committing it.
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This City is what it is because our citizens are what they are.
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The greatest mistake physicians make is that they attempt to cure the body without attempting to cure the mind, yet the mind and the body are one and should not be treated separately!
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At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.
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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.
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Let no-one ignorant of geometry enter. Said to have been inscribed above the door of Plato's Academy.
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Fly from the company of the wicked--fly and turn not back.
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We are too feeble and sluggish to make our way out to the upper limit of the air. If someone could reach the summit, or put on wings and fly aloft, when he put up his head he would see the world above, just as fishes see our world when they put up their heads out of the sea; and if his nature were able to bear the sight, he would recognize that that is the true heaven.
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Injustice is censured because the censures are afraid of suffering, and not from any fear which they have of doing injustice.
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Conversion is not implanting eyes, for they exist already; but giving them a right direction, which they have not.
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Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood let alone believed by the masses.
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If one sins against the laws of proportion and gives something too big to something too small to carry it - too big sails to too small a ship, too big meals to too small a body, too big powers to too small a soul - the result is bound to be a complete upset. In an outburst of hubris the overfed body will rush into sickness, while the jack-in-office will rush into the unrighteousness that hubris always breeds.
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If you think your child's academic studies are more important than the arts, think again.