Quotes from Plato

And if we are good, we are beneficent: for all good things are beneficial. Are they not?

All good and evil, whether in the body or in human nature, originates in the soul, and overflows from thence, as if from the head into the eyes.

Know one knows whether death, which people fear to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good.

Where it is a general rule that it is wrong to gratify lovers, this can be attributed to the defects of those who make that rule: the government's lust for rule and the subjects' cowardice.

When you feel grateful, you become great, and eventually attract great things.

Those who intend on becoming great should love neither themselves or their own things, but only what is just, whether it happens to be done by themselves or others.

Happiness springs from doing good and helping others.

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

The man who makes everything that leads to happiness depend upon himself and not upon other men has adopted the very best plan for living happily.

Virtue is a kind of health, beauty and good habit of the soul.

Much more wretched than lackof health inthe body, it is to dwell with a soul that is not healthy, but corrupt.

Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.

The rulers of the state are the only persons who ought to have the privilege of lying, either at home or abroad; they may be allowed to lie for the good of the state.

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

If we are to have any hope for the future, those who have lanterns must pass them on to others.

There will be no end to the troubles of states,Or of humanity itself,Till philosophers become kings in this world,Or till those we now call kings and rulers really And truly become philosophers

Music gives wings to the mind and flight to the imagination.

The worst form of injustice is pretended justice.

All thought begins with the recognition that something is out of place.

Education is teaching our children to desire the right things.

The most virtuous are those who content themselves with being virtuous without seeking to appear so.

Aspiring minds must sometimes sustain loss.

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

I know that I know nothing