Quotes from Plato

The part can never be well unless the whole is well.

The blame is his who chooses: God is blameless.

Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men.

Democracy passes into despotism.

Solon was under a delusion when he said that a man when he grows old may learn many things—for he can no more learn much than he can run much; youth is the time for any extraordinary toil.

We do not learn and what we call learning is only a process of recollection.

Let parents bequeath to their children not riches, but the spirit of reverence.

Those who intend on becoming great should love neither themselves nor their own things, but only what is just, whether it happens to be done by themselves or others.

The life which is unexamined is not worth living.

One man cannot practice many arts with success.

Nothing can be more absurd than the practice that prevails in our country of men and women not following the same pursuits with all their strengths and with one mind, for thus, the state instead of being whole is reduced to half.

Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue.

It is vain for the sober man to knock at poesy's door.

He who is of calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden.

No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.

Twice and thrice over, as they say, good is it to repeat and review what is good.

The judge should not be young; he should have learned to know evil, not from his own soul, but from late and long observation of the nature of evil in others: knowledge should be his guide, not personal experience.

What is the prime of life? May it not be defined as a period of about twenty years in a woman's life, and thirty in a man's?

Boys should abstain from all use of wine until their eighteenth year, for it is wrong to add fire to fire.

Injustice is censured because the censures are afraid of suffering, and not from any fear which they have of doing injustice.

No one knows whether death is really the greatest blessing a man can have, but they fear it is the greatest curse, as if they knew well.

Wealth is well known to be a great comforter.

We ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible and to become like him is to become holy, just, and wise.

Science is nothing but perception.