Plato Quotes

The beginning is the most important part of any work.

I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning.

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.

I will tell you, in order that you may not share the impiety of the multitude: for there cannot conceivably be anything more impious or more to be guarded against than being mistaken in word and deed with regard to the gods, and after them, with regard to divine men; you must take very great precaution, whenever you are about to blame or praise a man, so as not to speak incorrectly. For this reason you must learn to distinguish honest and dishonest men: for God feels resentment when one blames a man who is like himself, or praises a man who is the opposite; and the former is the good man. For you must not suppose that while stocks and stones and birds and snakes are sacred, men are not; nay, the good man is the most sacred of all these things, and the wicked man is the most defiled.

أصعب أنواع الصداقة كافة هي صداقة المرء لنفسه

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.

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

The vicious lover is the follower of earthly Love who desires the body rather than the soul; his heart is set on what is mutable and must therefore be inconstant. And as soon as the body he loves begins to pass the first flower of its beauty, he "spreads his wings and flies away," giving the lie to all his pretty speeches and dishonoring his vows, whereas the lover whose heart is touched by moral beauties is constant all his life, for he has become one with what will never fade.

There is no such thing as a lover's oath.

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.

But I am too stupid to be convinced by him.

When men speak ill of thee, live so as nobody may believe them.

The wisdom which knows what are and are not dangers is opposed to the ignorance of them

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.

Love is a serious mental disease.