Plato Quotes
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The passionate are like men standing on their heads, they see all things the wrong way.
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Perfect wisdom has four parts: Wisdom, the principle of doing things aright. Justice, the principle of doing things equally in public and private. Fortitude, the principle of not fleeing danger, but meeting it. Temperance, the principle of subduing desires and living moderately.
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Geometry existed before creation.
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Justice is nothing more than the advantage of the stronger.
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Nothing more excellent or valuable than wine was every granted by the gods to man.
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Where love reigns, there's no need for laws.
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The proud man is forsaken of God.
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He whom loves touches not walks in darkness.
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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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Many are the noble words in which poets speak concerning the actions of men; but like yourself when speaking about Homer, they do not speak of them by any rules of art: they are simply inspired to utter that to which the Muse impels them, and that only; and when inspired, one of them will make dithyrambs, another hymns of praise, another choral strains, another epic or iambic verses- and he who is good at one is not good any other kind of verse: for not by art does the poet sing, but by power divine.
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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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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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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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Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous.
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Because it is correct to make a priority of young people, taking care that they turn out as well as possible.
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And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and other objects in the water, and then the objects themselves, then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars and the spangled heaven...Last of all he will be able to see the sun.
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Fly from the company of the wicked--fly and turn not back.
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The wisest have the most authority.
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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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There's a victory, and defeat; the first and best of victories, the lowest and worst of defeats which each man gains or sustains at the hands not of another, but of himself.
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To the rulers of the state then, if to any, it belongs of right to use falsehood, to deceive either enemies or their own citizens, for the good of the state: and no one else may meddle with this privilege.
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By the golden chain Homer meant nothing else than the sun.
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This City is what it is because our citizens are what they are.
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Each living creature is said to be alive and to be the same individual - as for example someone is said to be the same person from when he is a child until he comes to be an old man. And yet, if he's called the same, that's despite the fact that he's never made up from the same things, but is always being renewed, and losing what he had before, whether it's hair, or flesh, or bones, or blood, in fact the whole body.