Plato Quotes

That man is wisest who, like Socrates, realizes that his wisdom is worthless

Mob rule and emasculation of the wise' and 'who will watch the guardians'?

When a Benefit is wrongly conferred, the author of the Benefit may often be said to injure.

The soul is like a pair of winged horses and a charioteer joined in natural union.

Rhythm and harmony enter most powerfully into the inner most part of the soul and lay forcible hands upon it, bearing grace with them, so making graceful him who is rightly trained.

Aspiring minds must sometimes sustain loss.

Mathematics is like draughts in being suitable for the young, not too difficult, amusing, and without peril to the state.

Man is a two-legged animal without feathers.

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.

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.

All the gold upon the earth and all the gold beneath it, does not compensate for lack of virtue.

Arithmetic has a very great and elevating effect, compelling the soul to reason about abstract number, and rebelling against the introduction of visible or tngible objects into the argument.

I have this tattooed on my left side! I love the saying and it's a perfect description of Karma, don't judge/discriminate and don't do to someone what you wouldn't want done to you.

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

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.

I would fain grow old learning many things.

Injustice is censured because the censures are afraid of suffering, and not from any fear which they have of doing injustice.

The cure of many diseases is unknown to physicians because they are ignorant of the whole... For the part can never be well unless the whole is well.

He who is not a good servant will not be a good master.

Follow your dream as long as you live, do not lessen the time of following desire, for wasting time is an abomination of the spirit.

No soul willfully does wrong.

He who love touches walks not in darkness.

You can't do good if you don't feel good.

It gives me great pleasure to converse with the aged. They have been over the road that all of us must travel, and know where it is rough and difficult and where it is level and easy.

Your dog is your only philosopher.

Wonder is the beginning of the desire to know the beautiful and the good.

The cause of all sins in every case lies in the person's excessive love of self.

Be kind, for everyone is having a hard battle.

I'm trying to think, don't confuse me with facts.

No one is so cowardly that Love could not inspire him to heroism.

... Societies aren t made of sticks and stones, but of men whose individual characters, by turning the scale one way or another, determine the direction of the whole.

What then is the right way to live? Life should be lived as play.

The community which has neither poverty nor riches will always have the noblest principles.

States will never be happy until rulers become philosophers or philosophers become rulers.

Not by force shall the children learn, but through play

We will be better and braver if we engage and inquire than if we indulge in the idle fancy that we already know -- or that it is of no use seeking to know what we do not know.

Not only is the old man twice a child, but also the man who is drunk.

As the government is, such will be the man.

No one is a friend to his friend who does not love in return.

Pepper is small in quantity and great in virtue.

Nothing is more unworthy of a wise man, or ought to trouble him more, than to have allowed more time for trifling, and useless things, than they deserve.

Men of sound sense have Law for their god, but men without sense Pleasure.

I am about to die, and that is the hour in which men are gifted with prophetic power.

The good, of course, is always beautiful, and the beautiful never lacks proportion.

All who do evil and dishonorable things do them against their will.

You ought not to heal the body without the soul, for this is the great error of our day in treating the human body.

If a man can be properly said to love something, it must be clear that he feels affection for it as a whole, and does not love part of it to the exclusion of the rest.

Man is a prisoner who has no right to open the door of his prison and run away. . . . A man should wait, and not take his own life until God summons hiom.

Who are the true philosophers? Those whose passion is to love the truth.

Many are the thyrsus-bearers, but few are the mystics.