Plato Quotes

365 Sourced Quotes

And a democracy, I suppose, comes into being when the poor, winning the victory, put to death some of the other party, drive out others, and grant the rest of the citizens an equal share in both citizenship and offices.

Plato
If you are wise, all men will be your friends and kindred, for you will be useful.

Plato
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
Neither family, nor privilege, nor wealth, nor anything but Love can light that beacon which a man must steer by when he sets out to live the better life.

Plato
The point which I should first wish to understand is whether the pious or holy is beloved by the gods because it is holy, or holy because it is beloved of the gods.

Plato
Searching and learning is a process of remembering…and I, believing this to be true, am ready to search with you what virtue is.

Plato
And we shall most likely be defeated, and you will most likely be victors in the contest, if you learn so to order your lives as not to abuse or waste the reputation of your ancestors, knowing that to a man who has any self-respect, nothing is more dishonourable than to be honoured, not for his own sake, but on account of the reputation of his ancestors.

Plato
It is as expedient that a wicked man be punished as that a sick man be cured by a physician; for all chastisement is a kind of medicine.

Plato
Socrates, I shall not accuse you as I accuse others, of getting angry and cursing me when I tell them to drink the poison imposed by the authorities. I know you on the contrary in your time here to be the noblest and gentlest and best man of all who ever came here; and now I am sure you are not angry with me, for you know who are responsible, but with them.
Spoken by Socrates' gaoler

Plato
Man is a prisoner who has no right to open the door of his prison and run away.... A man should wait, and not take his own life until God summons hiom.

Plato
Excess generally causes reaction, and produces a change in the opposite direction, whether it be in the seasons, or in individuals, or in governments.

Plato
The cause of all sins in every case lies in the person's excessive love of self.

Plato
Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable.

Plato
How, then, might we contrive... one noble lie to persuade if possible the rulers themselves, but failing that the rest of the city?

Plato
But if we are guided by me we shall believe that the soul is immortal and capable of enduring all extremes of good and evil, and so we shall hold ever to the upward way and pursue righteousness with wisdom always and ever, that we may be dear to ourselves and to the gods both during our sojourn here and when we receive our reward.

Plato
As to the artists, do we not know that he only of them whom love inspires has the light of fame?-he whom love touches not walks in darkness.

Plato
The soul takes nothing with her to the other world but her education and culture; and these, it is said, are of the greatest service or of the greatest injury to the dead man, at the very beginning of his journey thither.

Plato
Then the lover, who is true and no counterfeit, must of necessity be loved by his love.

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
We ought to esteem it of the greatest importance that the fictions which children first hear should be adapted in the most perfect manner to the promotion of virtue.

Plato