Plato Quotes

I know too well that these arguments from probabilities are imposters, and unless great caution is observed in the use of them, they are apt to be deceptive.

Boys should abstain from all use of wine until their eighteenth year, for it is wrong to add fire to fire.

As long as I draw breath and am able, I won't give up practicing philosophy.

Philosophy is the highest music.

Plato worried that philosophical writing would take the place of living conversations for which, in philosophy, there is no substitute.

Every man is a poet when he is in love.

One man cannot practice many arts with success.

To remove ignorance is an important branch of benevolence.

For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories... The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile.

When you admonish a wrongdoer, do so gently, that it may not lead to hostility.

Let men of all ranks whether they are successful, or unsuccessful, whether they triumph or not; let them do their duty, and rest satisfied.

Madness is a divine release of the soul from the yoke of custom and convention.

Honesty is for the most par less profitable than dishonesty.

You can remember, a single deluge only, but there were many previous ones.

To do injustice is more disgraceful than to suffer it.

Love consists in feeling the Sacred One beating inside the loved one.

When a man drinks wine at dinner, he begins to be better pleased with himself.

Experience proves that anyone who has studied geometry is infinitely quicker to grasp difficult subjects than one who has not.

Art has no end but its own perfection.

Most people affirm pleasure to be the good, but the finer sort of wits say it is knowledge.

Wisdom is a blaze, kindled by a leaping spark.

... the good are not willing to rule either for the sake of money or of honor.

The most important stage of any enterprise is the beginning.

To be curious about that which is not one's concern while still in ignorance of oneself is ridiculous.

Hardly any human being is capable of pursuing two professions or two arts rightly.

For every man who has learned to fight in arms will desire to learn the proper arrangement of an army, which is the sequel of the lesson.

Then not only an old man, but also a drunkard, becomes a second time a child.

Give me a different set of mothers and I will give you a different world

Love is the joy of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the gods; desired by those who have no part in him, and precious to those who have the better part in him.

May I do to others as I would that they should do unto me.

A State would be happy where philosophers were kings, or kings philosophers.

Cooking is a form of flattery....a mischievous, deceitful, mean and ignoble activity, which cheats us by shapes and colors, by smoothing and draping.

For it is obvious to everybody, I think, that this study [of astronomy] compels the soul to look upward and leads it away from things here to higher things.

To go to the world below, having a soul which is like a vessel full of injustice, is the last and worst of all the evils.

Worthy of honor is he who does no injustice, and more than twofold honor, if he not only does no injustice himself, but hinders others from doing any.

When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income.

And we have made of ourselves living cesspools, and driven doctors to invent names for our diseases.

It is impossible to conceive of many without one.

'But the man who is ready to taste every form of knowledge, is glad to learn and never satisfied - he's the man who deserves to be called a philosopher, isn't he?'

Lord of Lords, grant us the good whether we pray for it or not, but evil keep from us, even though we pray for it.

'That is the story. Do you think there is any way of making them believe it?' ' Not in the first generation', he said, 'but you might succeed with the second and later generations.'

The mortal nature is seeking as far as is possible to be everlasting and immortal: and this is only to be attained by generation, because the new is always left in the place of the old.

Wisdom alone is the science of others sciences.

As there are misanthropists or haters of men, so also are there misologists, or haters of ideas.

Every soul pursues the good and does whatever it does for its sake.

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.

Putting the shoe on the wrong foot.

Truth is its own reward.

This City is what it is because our citizens are what they are.

The Earth is like one of those balls made of twelve pieces of skin.