The true lover of learning then must his earliest youth, as far as in him lies, desire all truth.... He whose desires are drawn toward knowledge in every form will be absorbed in the pleasures of the soul, and will hardly feel bodily pleasures I mean, if he be a true philosopher and not a sham one ... Then how can he who has the magnificence of mind and is the spectator of all times and all existence, think much of human life He cannot. Or can such a one account death fearful No indeed.
PlatoMariner, do not ask whose tomb this may be, but go with good fortune: I wish you a kinder sea.
PlatoThe soul takes nothing with her to the other world but her education and culture; and these, it is said, are of the greatest service or of the greatest injury to the dead man, at the very beginning of his journey hither.
PlatoAs there are misanthropists or haters of men, so also are there misologists, or haters of ideas.
PlatoIf one sins against the laws of proportion and gives something too big to something too small to carry it - too big sails to too small a ship, too big meals to too small a body, too big powers to too small a soul - the result is bound to be a complete upset. In an outburst of hubris the overfed body will rush into sickness, while the jack-in-office will rush into the unrighteousness that hubris always breeds.
Plato