Plato Quotes

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

One cannot make a slave of a free person, for a free person is free even in a prison.

Such, Echecrates, was the end of our comrade, who was, we may fairly say, of all those whom we knew in our time, the bravest and also the wisest and most upright man.

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

Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress, no matter how slow... even if that someone is yourself!

The highest form of pure thought is in mathematics.

Truth is the beginning of every good to the gods, and of every good to man.

The greatest penalty of evil-doing is to grow into the likeness of a bad man.

Attention to health is life greatest hindrance.

There is no such thing as a lovers' oath.

These, then, will be some of the features of democracy... it will be, in all likelihood, an agreeable, lawless, parti-colored commonwealth, dealing with all alike on a footing of equality, whether they be really equal or not.

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

He who without the Muse's madness in his soul comes knocking at the door of poesy and thinks that art will make him anything fit to be called a poet, finds that the poetry which he indites in his sober senses is beaten hollow by the poetry of madmen.

Discordance is evil. Harmony is virtue.

Putting the shoe on the wrong foot.

. . . the triumph of my art is in thoroughly examining whether the thought which the mind of the young man brings forth is a false idol or a noble and true birth.

Nothing more excellent or valuable than wine was every granted by the gods to man.

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

All things are in fate, yet all things are not decreed by fate.

So their combinations with themselves and with each other give rise to endless complexities, which anyone who is to give a likely account of reality must survey.

We understand why children are afraid of darkness ... but why are men afraid of light?

Let us describe the education of our men. What then is the education to be? Perhaps we could hardly find a better than that which the experience of the past has already discovered, which consists, I believe, in gymnastic, for the body, and music for the mind.

Courage is a kind of salvation.

The point which I should first wish to understand is whether the pious or holy is beloved by the gods because it is holy, or holy because it is beloved of the gods.

Welcome out of the cave, my friend. It's a bit colder out here, but the stars are just beautiful.

Courage is knowing what to fear.

Anything worth knowing is already known and must be remembered and reclaimed by the soul.

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.

Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.

I shall assume that your silence gives consent.

The measure of a man is what he does with power.

The wise man will want to be ever with him who is better than himself.

Knowledge is the rediscovering of our own insight.

For the poet is a light winged and holy thing, and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his senses and the mind is no longer with him. When he has not attained this state he is powerless and unable to utter his oracles.

Many are the noble words in which poets speak concerning the actions of men; but like yourself when speaking about Homer, they do not speak of them by any rules of art: they are simply inspired to utter that to which the Muse impels them, and that only; and when inspired, one of them will make dithyrambs, another hymns of praise, another choral strains, another epic or iambic verses- and he who is good at one is not good any other kind of verse: for not by art does the poet sing, but by power divine.

Virtue is relative to the actions and ages of each of us in all that we do.

Don't force your children into your ways, for they were created for a time different from your own.

Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy.

Let him know how to choose the mean and avoid the extremes on either side, as far as possible. . . . For this is the way of happiness.

... our purpose in founding our state was not to promote the happiness of a single class, but, so far as possible, of the whole community. Our idea was that we were most likely to justice in such a community, and so be able to decide the question we are trying to answer. We are therefore at the moment trying to construct what we think is a happy community by securing the happiness not of a select minority, but of a whole.

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

So the state founded on natural principles is wise as a whole in virtue of the knowledge inherent in its smallest constituent class, which exercises authority over the rest. And the smallest class is the one which naturally possesses that form of knowledge which alone of all others deserves the title of wisdom.

Ideas are the source of all things

The penalty that good men pay for not being interested in politics is to be governed by men worse than themselves.

The Dance, of all the arts, is the one that most influences the soul. Dancing is divine in its nature and is the gift of God.

The soul of him who has education is whole and perfect and escapes the worst disease, but, if a man's education be neglected, he walks lamely through life and returns good for nothing to the world below.

Take a look around, then, and see that none of the uninitiated are listening. Now by the uninitiated I mean the people who believe in nothing but what they can grasp in their hands, and who will not allow that action or generation or anything invisible can have real existence.

As wolves love lambs so lovers love their loves.