Plato - City Quotes

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Socrates, he says, breaks the law by corrupting young men and not recognizing the gods that the city recognizes, but some other new deities.

Plato
Since those who rule in the city do so because they own a lot, I suppose they're unwilling to enact laws to prevent young people who've had no discipline from spending and wasting their wealth, so that by making loans to them, secured by the young people's property, and then calling those loans in, they themselves become even richer and more honored.

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
The country places and the trees won't teach me anything, and the people in the city do.

Plato
The city in which those who are to rule are least eager to hold office must needs be the best governed and freest from strife.

Plato
Let there be one man who has a city obedient to his will, and he might bring into existence the ideal polity about which the world is so incredulous.

Plato
At the Egyptian city of Naucratis there was a famous old god whose name was Theuth; the bird which is called the Ibis was sacred to him, and he was the inventor of many arts, such as arithmetic and calculation and geometry and astronomy and draughts and dice, but his great discovery was the use of letters.

Plato
Any city, however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, the other of the rich; these are at war with one another.

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

Plato