Plato Quotes

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 our duty to select the best and most dependable theory that human intelligence can supply, and use it as a raft to ride the seas of life.

for the unexamined life is not worth living.

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.

Love is merely the name for the desire and pursuit of the whole.

And I understood then that I was a fool when I told you I would take my turn in singing the honours of Love, and admitted I was terribly clever in love affairs, whereas it seems I really had no idea how a eulogy ought to be made. For I was stupid enough to think that we ought to speak the truth about each person eulogised, and to make this the foundation, and from these truths to choose the most beautiful things and arrange them in the most elegant way; and I was quite proud to think how well I should speak, because I believed that I knew the truth.

Appearance tyrannizes over truth.

If anyone comes to the gates of poetry and expects to become an adequate poet by acquiring expert knowledge of the subject without the Muses' madness, he will fail, and his self-controlled verses will be eclipsed by the poetry of men who have been driven out of their minds.

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

And then, at this stage, every dictator comes up with the notorious and typical demand: he asks the people for bodyguards to protect him, the people's champion.

The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself.

اگه با دلت کسي يا چيزي رو دوست داشتي زياد جدي نگيرش. چون کار دل دوست داشتنه... درست مثل کار چشم که ديدنه ... ولي اگه کسي رو با عقلت دوست داشتي بدون داري چيزي رو تجربه مي کني که اسمش عشق واقعيه

if you are willing to reflect on the courage and moderation of other people, you will find them strange...they all consider death a great evil...and the brave among them face death, when they do, for fear of greater evils...therefore, it is fear and terror that make all men brave, except for philosophers. yet it is illogical to be brave through fear and cowardice...what of the moderate among them? is their experience not similar?...they master certain pleasures because they are mastered by others...i fear this is not the right exchange to attain virtue, to exchange pleasures for pleasures, pains for pains, and fears for fears, the greater for the less like coins, but that they only valid currency for which all these things should be exchanged is wisdom.

[T]hose who practice philosophy in the right way are in training for dying and they fear death least of all men.

Love is of something, and that which love desires is not that which love is or has; for no man desires that which he is or has. And love is of the beautiful, and therefore has not the beautiful. And the beautiful is the good, and therefore, in wanting and desiring the beautiful, love also wants and desires the good.