Plato famous quotes

Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.
-- Plato

#Plato #Desire #Flow

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

#Politics #Ends #Penalties

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

#Truth #Evil #Soul

If you do not take an interest in the affairs of your government, then you are doomed to live under the rule of fools.
-- Plato

#Government #Fool #Affair

A good decision is based on knowledge, and not on numbers.
-- Plato

#Business #Numbers #Decision

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.
-- Plato

#Plato #Cities #Physicians

How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state?
-- Plato

#Inspirational #Dream #Sleep

Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous.
-- Plato

#Plato #Evil #Aim

Music and rhythm find their way into the secret places of the soul
-- Plato

#Dance #Soul #Secret

Wisdom alone is the science of others sciences.
-- Plato

#Plato

The State which we have founded must possess the four cardinal virtues of wisdom, courage, discipline and justice ... Justice is the principle which has in fact been followed throughout, the principle of one man one job, of minding one s own business , in the sense of doing the job for which one is naturally fitted and not interfering with other people.
-- Plato

#Jobs #Men #People

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.
-- Plato

#Men #Perfect #Soul

The soul of man is immortal and imperishable.
-- Plato

#Men #Soul #Immortal

When man is not properly trained, he is the most savage animal on the face of the globe.
-- Plato

#Men #Animal #Faces

Self conquest is the greatest of victories.
-- Plato

#Plato #Self #Victory

By education I mean that training in excellence from youth upward which makes a man passionately desire to be a perfect citizen, and teaches him to rule, and to obey, with justice. This is the only education which deserves the name.
-- Plato

#Mean #Men #Names

We ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him is to become holy, just, and wise.
-- Plato

#Wise #Plato #Heaven

Atheism is a disease of the soul before it becomes an error of understanding.
-- Plato

#Atheist #Errors #Soul

Love is a madness produced by an unsatisfiable rational desire to understand the ultimate truth about the world.
-- Plato

#Love Is #Desire #World

Justice in the individual is now defined analogously to justice in the state. The individual is wise and brave in virtue of his reason and spirit respectively: he is disciplined when spirit and appetite are in proper subordination to reason. He is just in virtue of the harmony which exists when all three elements of the mind perform their proper function and so achieve their proper fulfillment; he is unjust when no such harmony exists.
-- Plato

#Wise #Justice #Brave

Either death is a state of nothingness and utter consciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and migration of the soul from this world to another. Now if death be of such a nature, I say that to die is to gain; for eternity is then only a single night.
-- Plato

#Death #Night #Men

Each citizen should play his part in the community according to his individual gifts.
-- Plato

#Play #Community #Citizens

Hereditary honors are a noble and a splendid treasure to descendants.
-- Plato

#Plato #Honor #Treasure

No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth.
-- Plato

#Plato #Speak #Speak The Truth

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

#Victory #Defeat #Conquer

Our object in the construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class.
-- Plato

#Depression #Class #Construction

Geometry existed before creation.
-- Plato

#Math #Creation #Geometry

There's a victory and defeat-the first and best of victories, the lowest and worst of defeats-which each man gains or sustains at the hands not of another, but of himself.
-- Plato

#Men #Hands #Victory

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

#Teacher #Men #Determine

Laws are partly formed for the sake of good men, in order to instruct them how they may live on friendly terms with one another, and partly for the sake of those who refuse to be instructed, whose spirit cannot be subdued, or softened, or hindered from plunging into evil.
-- Plato

#Men #Order #Law

This world is indeed a living being endowed with a soul and intelligence ... a single visible living entity containing all other living entities, which by their nature are all related.
-- Plato

#Soul #World #Entity

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.
-- Plato

#Hands #People #Words Of Wisdom

Man is a being in search of meaning.
-- Plato

#Men #Vision

Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.
-- Plato

#Attitude #Law #People

Knowledge is the rediscovering of our own insight.
-- Plato

#Past #Insight

. . . Then anyone who leaves behind him a written manual, and likewise anyone who receives it, in the belief that such writing will be clear and certain, must be exceedingly simple-minded. . . .
-- Plato

#Writing #Simple #Belief

The first and the best victory is to conquer self.
-- Plato

#Work #Self #Victory

Lack of activity destroys the good condition of every human being
-- Plato

#Humans

Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue.
-- Plato

#Plato #Soul #Movement

Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood let alone believed by the masses.
-- Plato

#Lying #Shadow #Culture

Until philosophers rule as kings or those who are now called kings and leading men genuinely and adequately philosophise, that is, until political power and philosophy entirely coincide, while the many natures who at present pursue either one exclusively are forcibly prevented from doing so, cities will have no rest from evils,... nor, I think, will the human race.
-- Plato

#Kings #Philosophy #Men

To love rightly is to love what is orderly and beautiful in an educated and disciplined way.
-- Plato

#Beautiful #Plato #Way

The beginning is the most important part of any work, especially in the case of a young and tender thing; for that is the time at which the character is being formed and the desired impression is more readily taken.
-- Plato

#Leadership #Taken #New Beginnings

Wisest is he who knows what he does not know.
-- Plato

#Philosophical #Doe #Wisest

Neither human wisdom nor divine inspiration can confer upon man any greater blessing than this [live a life of happiness and harmony here on earth].
-- Plato

#Inspiration #Men #Blessing

Remember our words, then, and whatever is your aim let virtue be the condition of the attainment of your aim, and know that without this all possessions and pursuits are dishonourable and evil.
-- Plato

#Plato #Evil #Our Words

God forever geometrizes.
-- Plato

#Math #Forever

Education and admonition commence in the first years of childhood, and last to the very end of life.
-- Plato

#Education #Years #Childhood

'But surely "blind" is just how you would describe men who have no true knowledge of reality, and no clear standard in their mind to refer to, as a painter refers to his model, and which they can study closely before they start laying down rules about what is fair or right or good where they are needed, or maintaining, as Guardians, any rules that already exist.' 'Yes, blind is just about what they are'
-- Plato

#Reality #Men #Words Of Wisdom

Music is a defining element of character.
-- Plato

#Character #Musical #Defining

The philosopher is in love with truth, that is, not with the changing world of sensation, which is the object of opinion, but with the unchanging reality which is the object of knowledge.
-- Plato

#Reality #Political #World

Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.
-- Plato

#Plato #Ignorance #Opinion

Knowledge of the soul is the only universal truth and the only wisdom - all other knowledge is transient.
-- Plato

#Soul #Universal Truth

The worst of all deceptions is self-deception.
-- Plato

#Self #Deception #Self Deception

Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils - no, nor the human race, as I believe - and then only will this our State have a possibility of life and behold the light of day.
-- Plato

#Kings #Plato #Philosophy

In order for man to succeed in life, God provided him with two means, education and physical activity. Not separately, one for the soul and the other for the body, but for the two together. With these means, man can attain perfection.
-- Plato

#Mean #Men #Two

Education in music is most sovereign because more than anything else rhythm and harmony find their way to the innermost soul and take strongest hold upon it
-- Plato

#Soul #Musical #Way

In order to seek one's own direction, one must simplify the mechanics of ordinary, everyday life.
-- Plato

#Order #Everyday #Vision

Happiness springs from doing good and helping others.
-- Plato

#Spring #Helping Others #Helping

The wise man will want to be ever with him who is better than himself.
-- Plato

#Wise #Wisdom #Men

When the mind's eye rests on objects illuminated by truth and reality, it understands and comprehends them, and functions intelligently; but when it turns to the twilight world of change and decay, it can only form opinions, its vision is confused and its beliefs shifting, and it seems to lack intelligence.
-- Plato

#Confused #Twilight #Eye

Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.
-- Plato

#Plato #Mind #Compulsion

He whom Love touches not walks in darkness.
-- Plato

#Love #Darkness #Walks

The cure of the part should not be attempted without treatment of the whole. No attempt should be made to cure the body without the soul. Let no one persuade you to cure the head until he has first given you his soul to be cured, for this is the great error of our day, that physicians first separate the soul from the body.
-- Plato

#Errors #Soul #Body

The power of the Good has taken refuge in the nature of the Beautiful
-- Plato

#Beauty #Beautiful #Taken

Geometry will draw the soul toward truth and create the spirit of philosophy.
-- Plato

#Philosophy #Soul #Spirit

Philosophy begins in wonder.
-- Plato

#Philosophy #Philosophical #Wonder

If a man neglects education, he walks lame to the end of his life.
-- Plato

#Education #Teaching #Men

To prefer evil to good is not in human nature; and when a man is compelled to choose one of two evils, no one will choose the greater when he might have the less.
-- Plato

#Men #Two #Evil

Truth is the beginning of every good thing, both in heaven and on earth; and he who would be blessed and happy should be from the first a partaker of truth, for then he can be trusted.
-- Plato

#Blessed #New Beginnings #Heaven

We will be better men, braver and less idle, if we believe that one must search for the things one does not know, rather than if we believe that it is not possible to find out what we do not know and that we must not look for it.
-- Plato

#Believe #Men #Doe

The only real ill-doing is the deprivation of knowledge.
-- Plato

#Education #Real #School

Whence comes war and fighting, and factions? Whence but from the body and the lust of the body? Wars are occasioned by the love of money, and money has to be acquired for the same and service of the body.
-- Plato

#Love #War #Fighting

... what we can be positive about is what we have just said, namely that they must be given the right education, whatever that may be, as the surest way to make them behave humanely to each other and the subjects in their charge.
-- Plato

#Political #Being Positive #May

... Societies aren t made of sticks and stones, but of men whose individual characters, by turning the scale one way or another, determine the direction of the whole.
-- Plato

#Character #Men #Political

The whole life of the philosopher is a preparation for death.
-- Plato

#Art #Philosophy #History

I know not how I may seem to others, but to myself I am but a small child wandering upon the vast shores of knowledge, every now and then finding a small bright pebble to content myself with
-- Plato

#Children #Words Of Wisdom #May

A grateful mind is a great mind which eventually attracts to itself great things.
-- Plato

#Gratitude #Grateful #Mind

The true lover of knowledge naturally strives for truth, and is not content with common opinion, but soars with undimmed and unwearied passion till he grasps the essential nature of things.
-- Plato

#Inspirational #Passion #Essentials

Man's music is seen as a means of restoring the soul, as well as confused and discordant bodily afflictions, to the harmonic proportions that it shares with the world soul of the cosmos.
-- Plato

#Confused #Inspiration #Mean

When a beautiful soul harmonizes with a beautiful form, and the two are cast in one mould, that will be the fairest of sights to him who has the eye to contemplate the vision.
-- Plato

#Beauty #Beautiful #Eye

The essence of knowledge is self-knowledge,
-- Plato

#Self #Essence #Self Knowledge

'But the man who is ready to taste every form of knowledge, is glad to learn and never satisfied - he's the man who deserves to be called a philosopher, isn't he?'
-- Plato

#Men #Words Of Wisdom #Taste

We are bound to our bodies like an oyster to its shell.
-- Plato

#Oysters #Body #Shells

Arithmetic has a very great and elevating effect, compelling the soul to reason about abstract number, and rebelling against the introduction of visible or tngible objects into the argument.
-- Plato

#Plato #Numbers #Soul

The purpose of education is to give to the body and to the soul all the beauty and all the perfection of which they are capable.
-- Plato

#Education #Perfection #Giving

And the true order of going, or being led by another, to the things of love, is to begin from the beauties of earth and mount upwards for the sake of that other beauty, using these steps only, and from one going on to two, and from two to all fair forms to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is.
-- Plato

#Love Is #Order #Essence

Love' is the name for our pursuit of wholeness, for our desire to be complete.
-- Plato

#Love Is #Names #Desire

Integrity is your destiny-it is the light that guides your way.
-- Plato

#Integrity #Destiny #Light

The seen is the changing, the unseen is the unchanging.
-- Plato

#Unseen #Unchanging

Ignorance, the root and the stem of every evil.
-- Plato

#Plato #Ignorance #Roots

All loves should be simply stepping stones to the love of God. So it was with me; and blessed be his name for his great goodness and mercy.
-- Plato

#Love #Blessed #Names

The noblest of all studies is the study of what man is and of what life he should live.
-- Plato

#Life #Men #Study

The cure of the part should not be attempted without the cure of the whole.
-- Plato

#Should #Cures

This alone is to be feared: the closed mind, the sleeping imagination, the death of spirit.
-- Plato

#Sleep #Imagination #Mind

Perfect wisdom has four parts: Wisdom, the principle of doing things aright. Justice, the principle of doing things equally in public and private. Fortitude, the principle of not fleeing danger, but meeting it. Temperance, the principle of subduing desires and living moderately.
-- Plato

#Perfect #Justice #Understanding

To escape from evil we must be made as far as possible like God; and the resemblance consists in becoming just and holy and wise.
-- Plato

#Wise #Evil #Becoming

States are as the men, they grow out of human characters.
-- Plato

#Plato #Character #Men

What the expression is intended to mean, I think, is that there is a better and a worse element in the character of each individual, and that when the naturally better element controls the worse then the man is said to be "master of himself", as a term of praise. But when - as a result of bad upbringing or bad company one s better element is overpowered by the numerical superiority of one s worse impulses, then one is criticized for not being master of oneself and for lack of self control.
-- Plato

#Character #Mean #Men

Just as bees make honey from thyme, the strongest and driest of herbs, so do the wise profit from the most difficult of experiences.
-- Plato

#Wise #Honey #Herbs