Plato, The Republic Quotes

I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.

Money-makers are tiresome company, as they have no standard but cash value.

Physical excellence does not of itself produce a good mind and character: on the other hand, excellence of mind and character will make the best of the physique it is given.

Excess of liberty, whether it lies in state or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery.

Either we shall find what it is we are seeking or at least we shall free ourselves from the persuasion that we know what we do not know.

The philosopher whose dealings are with divine order himself acquires the characteristics of order and divinity.

If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.

But I don't think we shall quarrel about a word - the subject of our inquiry is too important for that.

It is only just that anything that grows up on its own should feel it has nothing to repay for an upbringing which it owes no one.

Justice is useful when money is useless.

The tools that would teach men their own use would be beyond price.

Old age has a great sense of calm and freedom when the passions relax their hold, then, as Sophocles says, we are free from the grasp, not of one mad master only, but of many.

He who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age. But to him who is of an opposite disposition, youth and age are equally a burden.

The worst type of man behaves as badly in his waking life as some men do in their dreams.

What is honored in a culture gets cultivated there.

Haven't you noticed that opinion without knowledge is always a poor thing? At the best it is blind—isn't anyone who holds a true opinion without understanding like a blind man on the right road?

Those who don't know must learn from those who do.

Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul.

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.

Have you ever sensed that our soul is immortal and never dies?

The heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.

You take the words in the sense which is most damaging to the argument.

Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance

Then we shan’t regard anyone as a lover of knowledge or wisdom who is fussy about what he studies…