Plato Quotes

The greater part of instruction is being reminded of things you already know.

Justice is having and doing what is one's own.

The prisoner grows to love his chains.

Desires are only the lack of something: and those who have the greatest desires are in a worse condition than those who have none, or very slight ones.

You must base the Wisdom on Love.

Herein is the evil of ignorance, that he who is neither good nor wise is nevertheless satisfied with himself: he had no desire for that of which he feels no want.

For all good and evil, whether in the body or in human nature, originates ... in the soul, and overflows from thence, as from the head into the eyes.

No attempt should be made to cure the body without the soul

Man's greatest victory is over oneself.

Only the dead will know the end of the war.

To do wrong is the greatest of evils.

No attempt of curing the body should be made without curing the soul

Beauty is a natural superiority.

If you are willing to reflect on the courage and moderation of other people, you will find them strange.

Love is an intermediate state between possession and deprivation.

We should not exercise the body without the joint assistance of the mind; nor exercise the mind without the joint assistance of the body.

But at three, four, five, and even six years the childish nature will require sports; now is the time to get rid of self-will in him, punishing him, but not so as to disgrace him.

If there is a good and wise God, then there also exists a progress of humanity toward perfection.

For neither birth, nor wealth, nor honors, can awaken in the minds of men the principles which should guide those who from their youth aspire to an honorable and excellent life, as Love awakens them

They deem him their worst enemy who tells them the truth.

There is in every one of us, even those who seem to be most moderate, a type of desire that is terrible, wild, and lawless.

Renouncing the honors at which the world aims, I desire only to know the truth... and to the maximum of power, I exhort all other men to do the same.

Don't ask a poet to explain himself. He cannot.

Wonder [said Socrates] is very much the affection of a philosopher; for there is no other beginning of philosophy than this.

That is very high praise, which is given you by faithful witness.

Let him take heart who does advance, even in the smallest degree.

I do believe that there are gods, and in a far higher sense than that in which any of my accusers believe in them.

Nothing in human affairs is worth any great anxiety.

No man's nature is able to know what is best for the social state of man; or, knowing, always able to do what is best.

When the citizens of a society can see and hear their leaders, then that society should be seen as one.

And may we not say, Adeimantus, that the most gifted minds, when they are ill- educated, become the worst?

We ought to esteem it of the greatest importance that the fictions which children first hear should be adapted in the most perfect manner to the promotion of virtue.

He who has followed the path of love's initiation in the proper order will on arriving at the end suddenly perceive a marvelous beauty, the source of all our efforts

You may be sure, dear Crito, that inaccurate language is not only in itself a mistake: it implants evil in men's souls.

Was not this ... what we spoke of as the great advantage of wisdom -- to know what is known and what is unknown to us?

So where it is a general rule that it is wrong to gratify lovers, this can be attributed to the defects of those who make that rule: the government's lust for rule and the subjects' cowardice.

Freedom in a democracy is the glory of the state, and, therefore, in a democracy only will the freeman of nature deign to dwell.

To him who disgraces his family life is no life, and to such a person there is no one a friend, neither while living nor when dead.

It is a common saying, and in everybody's mouth, that life is but a sojourn.

There is a ... matter - much more valuable and divine than natural philosophy . ... On this matter I must speak to you in enigmas.

No town can live peacefully whatever its laws when its citizens do nothing but feast and drink and tire themselves out in the cares of love

...that not life, but a good life, is to be chiefly valued.

...the Gods too love a joke.

I should not like to say ... that any kind of knowledge is not to be learned; for all knowledge appears to be a good.

The flute is not an instrument that has a good moral effect - it is too exciting.

The fear of death is indeed the pretence of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being the appearance of knowing the unknown.

There are few people so stubborn in their atheism who, when danger is pressing in, will not acknowledge the divine power.

Trees and fields tell me nothing: men are my teachers.

It seems to me that whatever else is beautiful apart from asbsolute beauty is beautiful because it partakes of that absolute beauty, and for no other reason. Do you accept this kind of causality?

He who has knowledge of the just and the good and beautiful ... will not, when in earnest, write them in ink.