Quotes by Plato (Page 3 of 4)

Share... | See all 16 versions
Better to be unborn than untaught, for ignorance is the root of all misfortune.

Share... | See all 16 versions
The wise man will want to be ever with him who is better than himself.

Share... | See all 16 versions
An empty vessel makes the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood let alone believed by the masses.

Share... | See all 9 versions
The reason is that they utter these words of theirs not by virtue of a skill, but by a divine power -- otherwise, if they knew how to speak well on one topic thanks to a skill, they would know how to speak about every other topic too.

Share... | See all 16 versions
The matter is as it is in all other cases: if it is naturally in you to be a good orator, a notable orator you will be when you have acquired knowledge and practice .

Share... | See all 16 versions
The Muse herself makes some men inspired, from whom a chain of other men is strung out who catch their own inspiration from theirs.

Share... | See all 16 versions
So I spoke the truth when I said that neither I nor you nor any other man would rather do injustice than suffer it: for it is worse.

Share... | See all 14 versions
For it is clear, on the one hand, that have you been familiar with these things for a long time--whatever you wish to signify when you utter being--and, before this we used to believe it, but now we have been perplexed.

Share... | See all 16 versions
I Laïs who laughed scornfully at Hellas,
who kept a swarm of young lovers at my door,
I lay my mirror before the Paphian,
for I will not see myself as I am now,
and cannot see myself as once I was.

Share... | See all 16 versions
You were the Morning Star among the living.
In death, O Evening Star, you light the dead.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Aphrodite cried at Knidos when she saw Aphrodite:
O Zeus! Where did Praxiteles see me naked?

Share... | See all 16 versions
I am a sailor's tomb. Beside me lies a farmer.
Hell is the same, under the land and sea.

Share... | See all 16 versions
A poet, you see, is a light thing, and winged and holy, and cannot compose before he gets inspiration and loses control of his senses and his reason has deserted him.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Only a philosopher's mind grows wings, since its memory always keeps it as close as possible to those realities by being close to which the gods are divine.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Love' is the name for our pursuit of wholeness, for our desire to be complete.

Share... | See all 8 versions
For to fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise without really being wise, for it is to think that we know what we do not know. For no one knows whether death may not be the greatest good that can happen to man.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Love is born into every human being; it calls back the halves of our original nature together; it tries to make one out of two and heal the wound of human nature.

Share... | See all 4 versions
Aristotle was the most eminent of all the pupils of Plato.... He seceded from Plato while he was still alive; so that they tell a story that Plato said, Aristotle has kicked us off, just as chickens do their mother after they have been hatched.

Share... | See all 16 versions
When the citizens of a society can see and hear their leaders, then that society should be seen as one.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Hereditary honors are a noble and a splendid treasure to descendants.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Philosophy is an elegant thing, if anyone modestly meddles with it; but if they are conversant with it more than is becoming, it corrupts them.

Share... | See all 16 versions
But tell me, this physician of whom you were just speaking, is he a moneymaker, an earner of fees, or a healer of the sick?

Share... | See all 4 versions
Again, truth should be highly valued; if, as we were saying, a lie is useless to the gods, and useful only as a medicine to men, then the use of such medicines should be restricted to physicians; private individuals have no business with them.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Remember our words, then, and whatever is your aim let virtue be the condition of the attainment of your aim, and know that without this all possessions and pursuits are dishonourable and evil.

Share... | See all 4 versions
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.

Share... | See all 3 versions
Thus rhetoric, it seems, is a producer of persuasion for belief, not for instruction in the matter of right and wrong ... And so the rhetorician's business is not to instruct a law court or a public meeting in matters of right and wrong, but only to make them believe.

Share... | See all 4 versions
The honour of parents is a fair and noble treasure to their posterity, but to have the use of a treasure of wealth and honour, and to leave none to your successors, because you have neither money nor reputation of your own, is alike base and dishonourable.

Share... | See all 4 versions
Let us describe the education of our men. What then is the education to be? Perhaps we could hardly find a better than that which the experience of the past has already discovered, which consists, I believe, in gymnastic, for the body, and music for the mind.

Share... | See all 16 versions
A fit of laughter, which has been indulged to excess, almost always produces a violent reaction.

Share... | See all 16 versions
The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.

Share... | See all 16 versions
In politics we presume that everyone who knows how to get votes knows how to administer a city or a state. When we are ill... we do not ask for the handsomest physician, or the most eloquent one.

Share... | See all 15 versions
Too much attention to health is a hindrance to learning, to invention, and to studies of any kind, for we are always feeling suspicious shootings and swimmings in our heads, and we are prone to blame studies from them.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.

Share... | See all 16 versions
What is at issue is the conversion of the mind from the twilight of error to the truth, that climb up into the real world which we shall call true philosophy.

Share... | See all 16 versions
A tyrant... is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Welcome out of the cave, my friend. It's a bit colder out here, but the stars are just beautiful.

Share... | See all 16 versions
He is unworthy of the name of man who is ignorant of the fact that the diagonal of a square is incommensurable with its side.

Share... | See all 4 versions
According to Greek mythology, humans were originally created with four arms, four legs and a head with two faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.

Share... | See all 16 versions
I am that gadfly which God has attached to the state, and all day long …arousing and persuading and reproaching…You will not easily find another like me.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Serious things cannot be understood without laughable things, nor opposites at all without opposites.

Share... | See all 9 versions
That in our state one man was to do one job, and the job he was naturally most suited for .. And further, we have often heard and often said that justice consists of minding your own business and not interfering with other people.

Share... | See all 16 versions
When a beautiful soul harmonizes with a beautiful form, and the two are cast in one mould, that will be the fairest of sights to him who has the eye to contemplate the vision.

Share... | See all 9 versions
A person who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he or she ought only to consider whether in doing anything he or she is doing right or wrong- acting the part of a good person or a bad person.

Share... | See all 3 versions
My good friend, you are a citizen of Athens, a city which is very great and very famous for its wisdom and power -- are you not ashamed of caring so much for the making of money and for fame and prestige, when you neither think nor care about wisdom and truth and the improvement of your soul?

Share... | See all 16 versions
The beginning is the most important part of any work, especially in the case of a young and tender thing; for that is the time at which the character is being formed and the desired impression is more readily taken.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Would that I were the heaven, that I might be all full of love-lit eyes to gaze on thee.

Share... | See all 16 versions
For I am certain, O men of Athens, that if I had engaged in politics, I should have perished long ago and done no good either to you or to myself.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Socrates: I'm afraid that it might actually be sacrilegious to stand idly by while morality is being denigrated and not try to assist as long as one has breath in one's body and a voice to protest with.

Share... | See all 16 versions
As I kissed Agathon my soul swelled to my lips,
where it hangs, pitiful, hoping to leap across.

Share... | See all 16 versions
And we have made of ourselves living cesspools, and driven doctors to invent names for our diseases.

Share... | See all 8 versions
These, then, will be some of the features of democracy... it will be, in all likelihood, an agreeable, lawless, parti-colored commonwealth, dealing with all alike on a footing of equality, whether they be really equal or not.

Share... | See all 21 versions
Money-makers are tiresome company, as they have no standard but cash value.

Share... | See all 16 versions
I know not how I may seem to others, but to myself I am but a small child wandering upon the vast shores of knowledge, every now and then finding a small bright pebble to content myself with.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion has no hold on the mind. Therefore do not use compulsion, but let early education be a sort of amusement; you will then be better able to discover the child's natural bent.

Share... | See all 16 versions
The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Human beings have Love for one another inborn in them -- Love, reassembler of our ancient nature, who tries to make one out of two and to heal human nature.

Share... | See all 16 versions
There is far greater peril in buying knowledge than in buying meat and drink.

Share... | See all 3 versions
And when one of them meets the other half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy and one will not be out of the other's sight, as I may say, even for a moment.

Share... | See all 3 versions
The soul takes nothing with her to the next world but her education and her culture. At the beginning of the journey to the next world, one's education and culture can either provide the greatest assistance, or else act as the greatest burden, to the person who has just died.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on Simplicity.
Longer Version:
Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity -- I mean the true simplicity of a rightly and nobly ordered mind and character, not that other simplicity which is only a euphemism for folly.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Mankind will never see an end of trouble until lovers of wisdom come to hold political power, or the holders of power become lovers of wisdom.

Share... | See all 16 versions
A grateful mind is a great mind which eventually attracts to itself great things.

Share... | See all 16 versions
The true lover of knowledge naturally strives for truth, and is not content with common opinion, but soars with undimmed and unwearied passion till he grasps the essential nature of things.

Share... | See all 16 versions
The learning and knowledge that we have is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Musical innovation is full of danger to the State, for when modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the State always change with them.

Share... | See all 16 versions
When a Benefit is wrongly conferred, the author of the Benefit may often be said to injure.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Wonder is the feeling of the philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.

Share... | See all 16 versions
They do certainly give very strange, and newfangled, names to diseases.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Then not only an old man, but also a drunkard, becomes a second time a child.

Share... | See all 16 versions
The highest reach of injustice is to be deemed just when you are not.

Share... | See all 16 versions
We ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him is to become holy, just, and wise.

Share... | See all 16 versions
No one ever teaches well who wants to teach, or governs well who wants to govern.

Share... | See all 16 versions
The excessive increase of anything causes a reaction in the opposite direction.

Share... | See all 16 versions
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.

Share... | See all 16 versions
The eyes of the soul of the multitudes are unable to endure the vision of the divine.

Share... | See all 16 versions
A hero is born among a hundred, a wise man is found among a thousand, but an accomplished one might not be found even among a hundred thousand men.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Excess generally causes reaction, and produces a change in the opposite direction, whether it be in the seasons, or in individuals, or in governments.

Share... | See all 16 versions
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Those who intend on becoming great should love neither themselves nor their own things, but only what is just, whether it happens to be done by themselves or others.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Know one knows whether death, which people fear to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good.

Share... | See all 16 versions
Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand.
Quotes by Plato are featured in:
Happiness Quotes
Gratitude Quotes
History Quotes
Justice Quotes
Life Quotes
Money Quotes
Simplicity Quotes
Words Of Wisdom Quotes
Happy Quotes
Love Quotes
Flirting Quotes
Short Love Quotes