Plato Quotes
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Prophecy is rash, but it may be that the publication of D.T. Suzuki's first Essays in Zen Buddhism in 1927 will seem to future generations as great an intellectual event as William of Moerbeke's Latin translations of Aristotle in the thirteenth century or Marsiglio Ficino's of Plato in the fifteenth.
D. T. Suzuki
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Before Plato could describe love, the loved one had to be invented. We would never love anybody if we could see past our invention. Bosie is my creation, my poem. In the mirror of invention, love discovered itself.
Tom Stoppard
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Ornate rhetoric thought out of the rule of Plato... To which poetry would be made subsequent, or indeed rather precedent, as being less subtle and fine, but more simple, sensuous, and passionate.
John Milton
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Plato described ordinary life as unthinking, lived in a dim cave of shadowy reflections, but said that it is possible to leave the cave and see things in sunlit clarity as they actually are.
Huston Smith
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In 'The Plato Papers' I wanted to get another perspective on the present moment by extrapolating into the distant future. So in that sense, there's a definite similarity of purpose between a book set in the future and a book set in the past.
Peter Ackroyd
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Even before Plato, techne was conceived as knowledge of a determinate field that could be mastered by "the expert". Such a person becomes an authority to whom laypersons should, in their dealings with that field, defer. Techne typically results in a useful result.
David Roochnik
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Nonbeing must in some sense be, otherwise what is it that there is not? This tangled doctrine might be nicknamed Plato's beard; historically it has proved tough, frequently dulling the edge of Occam's razor.
Willard Van Orman Quine
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Since Socrates and Plato first speculated on the nature of the human mind, serious thinkers through the ages - from Aristotle to Descartes, from Aeschylus to Strindberg and Ingmar Bergman - have thought it wise to understand oneself and one's behavior.
Eric Kandel
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He that makes himself famous by his eloquence, justice or arms illustrates his extraction, let it be never so mean; and gives inestimable reputation to his parents. We should never have heard of Sophroniscus, but for his son, Socrates; nor of Ariosto and Gryllus, if it had not been for Xenophon and Plato.
Seneca the Younger
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It may well seem that Plato does suggest techne is the best model for moral knowledge. In other words, it may seem that his goal is to establish an expert or authority in the field of the good-bad, just-unjust.
David Roochnik
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Plato is never sullen, Cervantes is never petulant, Demosthenes never comes unseasonably, Dante never stays too long.
Nathaniel Parker
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Teaching Plato in Palestine shows how philosophical thinking can illuminate important topics-in particular, the problem of finding ways to engage people with opposed ideologies in fruitful debate. The lively narratives, based on the author's experiences of working with various groups interested in using philosophical tools to clarify their thought and action, will engage a wide range of readers.
Gary Gutting
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In general, I distrust philosophy. Plato recommended chasing poets from the city; the 'great' Heidegger was a Nazi; Lukacs was a communist; and J. P. Sartre wrote: 'Any anti-communist is a dog.'
Claude Simon
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Plato was a bore.
Friedrich Nietzsche
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Philosophy, beginning in wonder, as Plato and Aristotle said, is able to fancy everything different from what it is. It sees the familiar as if it were strange, and the strange as if it were familiar. It can take things up and lay them down again. It rouses us from our native dogmatic slumber and breaks up our caked prejudices.
William James
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Plato is my friend but the truth is my best friend.
Antiphanes
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It seems that I must bid the Muse to pack, / Choose Plato and Plotinus for a friend / Until imagination, ear and eye, / Can be content with argument and deal / In abstract things; or be derided by / A sort of battered kettle at the heel.
William Butler Yeats
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First and foremost, note that Plato always wrote dialogues, and never attempted to produce a theoretical or scientific treatise. This is a big clue for me. From beginning to end, Plato was aware of the limits of theoretical and technical reasoning, and his dialogues are a massive exploration.
David Roochnik
