Plato - Republic

88 Sourced Quotes

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In the early days of his power, he is full of smiles, and he salutes everyone whom he meets.

Plato
We must infer that all things are produced more plentifully and easily and of a better quality when one man does one thing which is natural to him and does it at the right time, and leaves other things.

Plato
That which is apprehended by intelligence and reason is always in the same state; but that which is conceived by opinion with the help of sensation and without reason, is always in a process of becoming and perishing and never really is.

Plato
Can we deny that a warrior should have a knowledge of arithmetic?

Plato
If we are to keep our flock at the highest pitch of excellence, there should be as many unions of the best of both sexes, and as few of the inferior as possible, and that only the offspring of the better unions should be kept.

Plato
In astronomy, as in geometry, we should employ problems, and let the heavens alone if we would approach the subject in the right way and so make the natural gift of reason to be of any real use.

Plato
Every soul pursues the good and does whatever it does for its sake.

Plato
SOC: And all arithmetic and calculations have to do with number?
GLAUCON: Yes.
SOC: And they appear to lead the mind towards truth?
GLAUCON: Yes, in a very remarkable manner.

Plato
The makers of fortunes have a second love of money as a creation of their own, resembling the affection of authors for their own poems, or of parents for their children, besides that natural love of it for the sake of use and profit.

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
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.

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

Plato
The affairs of music ought, somehow, to terminate in the love of the beautiful.

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
No trace of slavery ought to mix with the studies of the freeborn man. No study, pursued under compulsion, remains rooted in the memory.

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
What I say is that 'just' or 'right' means nothing but what is in the interest of the stronger party.
Spoken by Thrasymachus

Plato
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
Let early education be a sort of amusement; you will then be better able to find out the natural bent.

Plato
If the study of all these sciences which we have enumerated, should ever bring us to their mutual association and relationship, and teach us the nature of the ties which bind them together, I believe that the diligent treatment of them will forward the objects which we have in view, and that the labor, which otherwise would be fruitless, will be well bestowed.

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
Wealth is the parent of luxury and indolence, and poverty of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent.

Plato
All things will be produced in superior quantity and quality, and with greater ease, when each man works at a single occupation, in accordance with his natural gifts, and at the right moment, without meddling with anything else.

Plato
For it is obvious to everybody, I think, that this study [of astronomy] compels the soul to look upward and leads it away from things here to higher things.

Plato
The qualities of number appear to lead to the apprehension of truth.

Plato
Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.

Plato
Mankind censure injustice fearing that they may be the victims of it, and not because they shrink from committing it.

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

Plato
And is it not true that in like manner a leader of the people who, getting control of a docile mob, does not withhold his hand from the shedding of tribal blood, but by the customary unjust accusations brings a citizen into court and assassinates him, blotting out a human life, and with unhallowed tongue and lips that have tasted kindred blood, banishes and slays and hints at the abolition of debts and the partition of lands.

Plato
For the introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state; since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions.

Plato