Plato Quotes
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Books are immortal sons deifying their sires.
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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.
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For the introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state; since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions.
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The most important part of education is right training in the nursery. The soul of the child in his play should be trained to that sort of excellence in which, when he grows to manhood, he will have to be perfected.
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To be at once exceedingly wealthy and good is impossible.
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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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Everything that deceives does so by casting a spell.
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Madness is a divine release of the soul from the yoke of custom and convention.
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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.
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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.
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He whom loves touches not walks in darkness.
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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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A nation will prosper to the degree that it honors it's teachers.
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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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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.
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Geometry existed before creation.
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Madness, provided it comes as the gift of heaven, is the channel by which we receive the greatest blessings... the men of old who gave things their names saw no disgrace or reproach in madness; otherwise they would not have connected it with the name of the noblest of arts, the art of discerning the future, and called it the manic art... So, according to the evidence provided by our ancestors, madness is a nobler thing than sober sense... madness comes from God, whereas sober sense is merely human.
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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.
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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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Before all it's necessary to look after the Soul, if you want the head and the rest of the body to function correctly.
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Boys should abstain from all use of wine until their eighteenth year, for it is wrong to add fire to fire.
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The greatest penalty of evil-doing is to grow into the likeness of a bad man.
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May I deem the wise man rich, and may I have such a portion of gold as none but a prudent man can either bear or employ.