Plato Quotes

And is there anything more closely connected with wisdom than truth?

When man is not properly trained, he is the most savage animal on the face of the globe.

The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things.

They (the poets) are to us in a manner the fathers and authors of the wisdom.

Philosophy begins in wonder.

It is beautiful to wish to add another's light to your own.

The cure of the part should not be attempted without treatment of the whole. No attempt should be made to cure the body without the soul. Let no one persuade you to cure the head until he has first given you his soul to be cured, for this is the great error of our day, that physicians first separate the soul from the body.

All men are by nature equal, made all of the same earth by one Workman; and however we deceive ourselves, as dear unto God is the poor peasant as the mighty prince.

Take charge of your thoughts. You can do what you will with them

The cause of all the blunders committed by man arises from this excessive self-love. For the lover is blinded by the object loved; so that he passes a wrong judgment on what is just, good and beautiful, thinking that he ought always to honor what belongs to himself in preference to truth. For he who intends to be a great man ought to love neither himself nor his own things, but only what is just, whether it happens to be done by himself, or by another.

The wolf cares not, how many the sheep be.

Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.

The deity on purpose [sings] the liveliest of all lyrics through the most miserable poet.

The greatest mistake physicians make is that they attempt to cure the body without attempting to cure the mind, yet the mind and the body are one and should not be treated separately!

Geometry existed before creation.

Train children not by compulsion but as if they were playing.

States are as the men, they grow out of human characters.

Enjoy life. There's plenty of time to be dead. Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.

But of the heaven which is above the heavens, what earthly poet ever did or ever will sing worthily?

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.

For the introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state; since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions.

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

The soul of man is immortal and imperishable.

God is truth and light his shadow.

Atheism is a disease of the soul before it becomes an error of understanding.

Mankind will never see an end of trouble until lovers of wisdom come to hold political power, or the holders of power become lovers of wisdom

Apply yourself both now and in the next life. Without effort, you cannot be prosperous. Though the land be good, you cannot have an abundant crop without cultivation.

A tyrant... is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.

We are like people looking for something they have in their hands all the time; we're looking in all directions except at the thing we want, which is probably why we haven't found it.

No human thing is of serious importance.

The only thing worse than suffering an injustice is committing an injustice.

Those wretches who never have experienced the sweets of wisdom and virtue, but spend all their time in revels and debauches, sink downward day after day, and make their whole life one continued series of errors.

God forever geometrizes.

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.

A grateful mind is a great mind which eventually attracts to itself great things.

The highest reach of injustice is to be deemed just when you are not.

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

Love is a madness produced by an unsatisfiable rational desire to understand the ultimate truth about the world.

I would have you imagine, then, that there exists in the mind of man a block of wax... and that we remember and know what is imprinted as long as the image lasts; but when the image is effaced, or cannot be taken, then we forget or do not know.

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

The cure of the part should not be attempted without the cure of the whole.

He who advises a sick man, whose manner of life is prejudicial to health, is clearly bound first of all to change his patient's manner of life.

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

Arguments, like men, are often pretenders.

The most important part of education is right training in the nursery. The soul of the child in his play should be trained to that sort of excellence in which, when he grows to manhood, he will have to be perfected.

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.

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.

Harmony sinks deep into the recesses of the soul and takes its strongest hold there, bringing grace also to the body & mind as well. Music is a moral law. It gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, and life to everything. It is the essence of order.