Plato Quotes

Plato

Biography

Type: Ancient philosopher

Born: 428/427 or 424/423 BC Athens

Died: 348/347 BC (age c. 80), Athens

Plato was a philosopher and mathematician in Classical Greece, and the founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. He is widely considered the most pivotal figure in the development of philosophy, especially the Western tradition. Unlike nearly all of his philosophical contemporaries, Plato's entire œuvre is believed to have survived intact for over 2,400 years.

Plato Quotes

Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing
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.

Love is a serious mental disease.. Plato
Love is a serious mental disease.

Writing is the geometry of the soul. . Plato
Writing is the geometry of the soul.

The reason is that they utter these words of theirs not by virtue of a skill, but by a divine power - otherwise, if they knew how to speak well on one topic thanks to a skill, they would know how to speak about every other topic too.

But I don't think we shall quarrel about a word - the subject of our inquiry
But I don't think we shall quarrel about a word - the subject of our inquiry is too important for that.

If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.

...and when one of them meets the other half, the actual half of himself, whether he
...and when one of them meets the other half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy and one will not be out of the other's sight, as I may say, even for a moment...

Education is teaching our children to desire the right things.. Plato
Education is teaching our children to desire the right things.

You should not honor men more than truth.. Plato
You should not honor men more than truth.

Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something..
Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.

The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.

Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it
Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.

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

In politics we presume that everyone who knows how to get votes knows how to administer
In politics we presume that everyone who knows how to get votes knows how to administer a city or a state. When we are ill... we do not ask for the handsomest physician, or the most eloquent one.

False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.. Plato
False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.

In practice people who study philosophy too long become very odd birds, not to say thoroughly vicious; while even those who are the best of them are reduced by...[philosophy] to complete uselessness as members of society.

How could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their
How could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?

For this feeling of wonder shows that you are a philosopher, since wonder is the only beginning of philosophy.

Philosophy is the highest music.. Plato
Philosophy is the highest music.

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.

let the speaker speak truly and the judge decide justly.

Then the lover, who is true and no counterfeit, must of necessity be loved by his love.

Ideas are the source of all things

Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous.

The philosopher whose dealings are with divine order himself acquires the characteristics of order and divinity.

O dear Pan and all the other gods of this place, grant that I may be beautiful inside. Let all my external possessions be in friendly harmony with what is within. May I consider the wise man rich. As for gold, let me have as much as a moderate man could bear and carry with him.

Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul.

To conquer oneself is the best and noblest victory; to be vanquished by one's own nature is the worst and most ignoble defeat.

Piety, then, is that which is dear to the gods, and impiety is that which is not dear to them.

....I am inclined to think that these muscles and bones of mine would have gone off long ago to Megara or Boeotia - by the dog they would, if they had been moved only by their own idea of what was best.

(tr Jowett)

Socrates: This man, on one hand, believes that he knows something, while not knowing [anything]. On the other hand, I – equally ignorant – do not believe [that I know anything].

Wise men talk because they have something to say; Fools, because they have to say something.

I thought to myself: I am wiser than this man; neither of us probably knows anything that is really good, but he thinks he has knowledge, when he has not, while I, having no knowledge, do not think I have.

The man who makes everything that leads to happiness depends upon himself, and not upon other men, has adopted the very best plan for living happily. This is the man of moderation, the man of manly character and of wisdom.

For to fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise without really being wise, for it is to think that we know what we do not know. For no one knows whether death may not be the greatest good that can happen to man.

He was a wise man who invented God.

You take the words in the sense which is most damaging to the argument.

Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.

Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.

Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand.

Either we shall find what it is we are seeking or at least we shall free ourselves from the persuasion that we know what we do not know.

Those who don't know must learn from those who do.

Then we shan’t regard anyone as a lover of knowledge or wisdom who is fussy about what he studies…

Knowledge unqualified is knowledge simply of something learned.

The soul takes nothing with her to the next world but her education and her culture. At the beginning of the journey to the next world, one's education and culture can either provide the greatest assistance, or else act as the greatest burden, to the person who has just died.

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

The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future life

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.

Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion has no hold on the mind. Therefore do not use compulsion, but let early education be a sort of amusement; you will then be better able to discover the child's natural bent.

It is the task of the enlightened not only to ascend to learning and to see the good but to be willing to descend again to those prisoners and to share their troubles and their honors, whether they are worth having or not. And this they must do, even with the prospect of death.

Calligraphy is a geometry of the soul which manifests itself physically.

The Muse herself makes some men inspired, from whom a chain of other men is strung out who catch their own inspiration from theirs.

A poet, you see, is a light thing, and winged and holy, and cannot compose before he gets inspiration and loses control of his senses and his reason has deserted him.

Ich kenne keinen sicheren Weg zum Erfolg, nur einen zum sicheren Misserfolg-es jedem recht machen zu wollen.

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.

Courage is knowing what not to fear.

The heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.

When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty and there is nothing to fear from them then he is always stirring up some wary or other in order that the people may require a leader.

They deem him their worst enemy who tells them the truth. -Plato, philosopher (427-347 BCE)

Appearance tyrannizes over truth.

For I am certain, O men of Athens, that if I had engaged in politics, I should have perished long ago and done no good either to you or to myself.

... there is no necessity for the man who means to be an orator to understand what is really just but only what would appear so to the majority of those who will give judgment; and not what is really good or beautiful but whatever will appear so; because persuasion comes from that and not from the truth.

Do you mean that the tyrant will dare to use violence against the people who fathered him, and raise his hand against them if they oppose him? So the tyrant is a parricide, and little comfort to his old parent.

And yet even in reaching for the beautiful there is beauty, and also in suffering whatever it is that one suffers en route.

There can be no fairer spectacle than that of a man, who combines the possession of moral beauty in his soul with outward beauty of form, corresponding and harmonizing with the former, because the same great pattern enters both.

Only the dead have seen the end of war.

Si vis pacem, para bellum

If a painter, then, paints a picture of an ideally beautiful man, complete to the last detail, is he any the worse painter because he cannot show that such a man could really exist?

[...]make sure you raise your children by having them play in their studies, and don't use force.

Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination
and life to everything.

Musical innovation is full of danger to the State, for when modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the State always change with them.

No wealth can ever make a bad man at peace with himself

I would teach children music, physics, and philosophy; but most importantly music, for the patterns in music and all the arts are the keys to learning

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything".

let me make the songs of a nation, and I care not who makes its law.

All is flux, nothing stays still

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.

good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws

No man should bring children into the world who is unwilling to persevere to the end in their nature and education.

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

It's like this, I think: the excellence of a good body doesn't make the soul good, but the other way around: the excellence of a good soul makes the body as good as it can be.

... when someone sees a soul disturbed and unable to see something, he won't laugh mindlessly, but he'll take into consideration whether it has come from a brighter life and is dimmed through not having yet become accustomed to the dark or whether it has come from greater ignorance into greater light and is dazzled by the increased brillance.

Have you ever sensed that our soul is immortal and never dies?

Knowledge is the food of the soul.

Money-makers are tiresome company, as they have no standard but cash value.

Courage is a kind of salvation. Courage is knowing what not to fear.

Physical excellence does not of itself produce a good mind and character: on the other hand, excellence of mind and character will make the best of the physique it is given.

Share Page

Plato Wiki

Plato At Amazon