Plato Quotes

And will life be worth having, if that higher part of man be destroyed, which is improved by justice and depraved by injustice?

... because it is correct to make a priority of young people, taking care that they turn out as well as possible...

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

This much is all I ask of my accusers: when my sons grow up, avenge yourselves by causing them the same kind of grief that I caused you, if you think they care for money or anything else more than they care for virtue, or if they think they are somebody when they are nobody.

Reproach them as I reproach you, that they do not care for the right things and think they are worthy when they are not worthy of anything. If you do this, I shall have been justly treated by you, and my sons also.

Now the hour to part has come. I go to die, you go to live. Which of us goes to the better lot is known to no one.

For no man is voluntarily bad; but the bad become bad by reason of an ill disposition of the body and bad education, things which are hateful to every man and happen to him against his will.

"["F]or it's not possible," [Socrates] said, "for anybody to experience a greater evil than hating arguments. Hatred of arguments and hatred of human beings come about in the same way. For hatred of human beings arises from artlessly trusting somebody to excess, and believing that human being to be in every way true and sound and trustworthy, and then a little later discovering that this person is wicked and untrustworthy - and then having this experience again with another. And whenever somebody experiences this many times, and especially at the hands of just those he might regard as his most intimate friends and comrades, he then ends up taking offense all the time and hates all human beings and believes there's nothing at all sound in anybody.

First, I must distinguish between that which always is and never becomes and which is apprehended by reason and reflection, and that which always becomes and never is and is conceived by opinion with the help of sense.

Would he not say with Homer,. Better to be the poor servant of a poor master, and to endure anything, rather than think as they do and live after their ...

Rather I think that a man who ... is willing ... to value learning as long as he lives, not supposing that old age brings him wisdom of itself, will necessarily pay more attention to the rest of his life.

For a poet is an airy thing, winged and holy, and he is not able to make poetry until he becomes inspired and goes out of his mind and his intellect is no longer in him.

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

Whereas the truth is that the State in which the rulers are most reluctant to govern is always the best and most quietly governed, and the State in which they are most eager, the worst.

Self conquest is the greatest of victories.

The highest form of pure thought is in mathematics.

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.