Plato Quotes

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

There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain.

And Agathon said, It is probable, Socrates, that I knew nothing of what I had said.

And yet spoke you beautifully, Agathon, he said.

According to Diotima, Love is not a god at all, but is rather a spirit that mediates between people and the objects of their desire. Love is neither wise nor beautiful, but is rather the desire for wisdom and beauty.

Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous.

Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.

Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they would like to say something. As empty vessels make the loudest sounds, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers.

This and no other is the root from
which a tyrant springs; when he
first appears he is a protector.

Time then has come into being along with the universe, that being generated together, together they may be dissolved, should a dissolution of them ever come to pass; and it was made after the pattern of the eternal nature, that it might be as like to it as was possible. For the pattern is existent for all eternity; but the copy has been and is and shall be throughout all time continually. So then this was the plan and intent of God for the generation of time; the sun and the moon and five other stars which have the name of planets have been created for defining and preserving the numbers of time. ...and a month is fulfilled when the moon, after completing her own orbit, overtakes the sun; a year, when the sun has completed his own course. But the courses of the others men have not taken into account, save a few out of many... they do not know that time arises from the wanderings of these, which are incalculable in multitude and marvellously intricate. None the less however can we observe that the perfect number of time fulfils the perfect year at the moment when the relative swiftnesses of all the eight revolutions accomplish their course together and reach their starting-point, being measured by the circle of the same and uniformly moving. In this way then and for these causes were created all such of the stars as wander through the heavens and turn about therein, in order that this universe may be most like to the perfect and ideal animal by its assimilation to the eternal being.

My opinion is: Truth must be absolute and that you Mr. Protagoras, are absolutely in error. Since this is indeed my opinion, then you must concede that it is true according to your philosophy.

It would be better for me … that multitudes of men should disagree with me rather than that I, being one, should be out of harmony with myself.

He who is only an athlete is too crude, too vulgar, too much a savage. He who is a scholar only is too soft, to effeminate. The ideal citizen is the scholar athlete, the man of thought and the man of action.

It is difficult to set forth any of the greater ideas, except by the use of examples; for it would seem that each of us knows everything that he knows as if in a dream and then again, when he is as it were awake, knows nothing of it all.

Virtue is the desire of things honourable and the power of attaining them.

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