Plato Quotes

365 Sourced Quotes

Those who reproach injustice do so because they are afraid not of doing it but of suffering it.

Plato
As long as I draw breath and am able, I won't give up practicing philosophy.

Plato
He, O men, is the wisest, who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing.

Plato
In one sense it is evident that the art of kingship does include the art of lawmaking. But the political ideal is not full authority for laws but rather full authority for a man who understands the art of kingship and has kingly ability.

Plato
The good are not willing to rule either for the sake of money or of honor.

Plato
For the rhapsode ought to interpret the mind of the poet to his hearers, but how can he interpret him well unless he knows what he means?

Plato
Everything desires not like but unlike: for example, the dry desires the moist, the cold the hot, the bitter the sweet, the sharp the blunt, the void the full, the full the void, and so of all other things; for the opposite is the food of the opposite, whereas like receives like receives nothing from like.

Plato
Evil is the vulgar lover who loves the body rather than the soul, inasmuch as he is not even stable, because he loves a thing which is in itself unstable, and therefore when the bloom of youth which he was desiring is over, he takes wing and flies away, in spite of all his words and promises; whereas the love of the noble disposition is life-long, for it becomes one with the everlasting.

Plato
The good are like one another, and friends to one another; and... the bad, as is often said of them, are never at unity with one another or with themselves, but are passionate and restless: and that which is at variance and enmity with itself is not likely to be in union or harmony with any other thing.

Plato
POLUS: O chaerephon, there are many arts among mankind which are experimental, and have their origin in experience, for experience makes the days of men to proceed according to art, and inexperience according to chance, and different persons in different ways are proficient in different arts, and the best persons in the best arts.

Plato
Harmony is a symphony, and symphony is an agreement; but an agreement of disagreements while they disagree there cannot be; you cannot harmonize that which disagrees.

Plato
Not every love, but only that which has a noble purpose, is noble and worthy of praise.

Plato
Such, Echecrates, was the end of our comrade, who was, we may fairly say, of all those whom we knew in our time, the bravest and also the wisest and most upright man.

Plato
A man who really fights for justice must lead a private, not a public, life if he is to survive for even a short time.

Plato
Fields and trees are not willing to teach me anything; but this can be effected by men residing in the city.

Plato
We are concerned with that part of geometry which relates to war; for in pitching a camp, or taking up a position, or closing or extending the lines of an army, or any other maneuver, whether in actual battle or on a march, it will make all the difference whether a general is or is not a geometrician.

Plato
If there is a good and wise God, then there also exists a progress of humanity toward perfection.

Plato
When a Benefit is wrongly conferred, the author of the Benefit may often be said to injure.

Plato
When a person supposes that he knows, and does not know; this appears to be the great source of all the errors of the intellect.

Plato
Do not great crimes and the spirit of pure evil spring out of a fullness of nature ruined by education rather than from any inferiority, whereas weak natures are scarcely capable of any very great good or very great evil?

Plato
For when there are no words, it is very difficult to recognize the meaning of the harmony and rhythm, or to see any worldly object is imitated by them.

Plato
A man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong - acting the part of a good man or of a bad.

Plato
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
How well I remember the aged poet Sophocles, when in answer to the question, "How does love suit with age, Sophocles - are you still the man you were?" he replied, "Peace, most gladly have I escaped the thing of which you speak; I feel as if I had escaped from a mad and furious master."

Plato
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.

Plato
May I deem the wise man rich, and may I have such a portion of gold as none but a prudent man can either bear or employ.

Plato
What a poor appearance the tales of poets make when stripped of the colours which music puts upon them, and recited in simple prose.

Plato
The true runner comes to the finish and receives the prize and is crowned.

Plato
Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another.

Plato
Socrates: The disgrace begins when a man writes not well, but badly.
Phaedrus: Clearly.
Socrates: And what is well and what is badly—need we ask Lysias, or any other poet or orator, who ever wrote or will write either a political or any other work, in metre or out of metre, poet or prose writer, to teach us this?

Plato