Quotes from Plato

Cuando se suscita en el alma alguna rebelión, la cólera toma siempre las armas en favor de la razón.

Virtue is free, and as a man honours or dishonours her he will have more or less of her; the responsibility is with the chooser—God is justified.

May we not say that the most gifted minds, when they are ill-educated, become pre-eminently bad? Do not great crimes and the spirit of pure evil spring out of a fulness 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?

There neither is nor ever will be a treatise of mine on the subject. For it does not admit of exposition like other branches of knowledge; but after much converse about the matter itself and a life lived together, suddenly a light, as it were, is kindled in one soul by a flame that leaps to it from another, and thereafter sustains itself.

In the course of the argument Socrates remarks that the controversial nature of morals and religion arises out of the difficulty of verifying them.

Hé bien, prolonge pour moi la joie du festin, en continuant à répondre. Nous venons de voir que les hommes justes sont meilleurs, plus habiles et plus forts que les hommes injustes ; que ceux-ci ne peuvent rien faire de concert ; et c'était une supposition gratuite que de supposer que des gens injustes aient

Such was the end of our comrade, Echecrates, a man who, we would say, was of all those we have known the best, and also the wisest and the most upright.

De modo que, al tratar de ver el alma que es filosófica y la que no, examinarás desde la juventud del sujeto si esa alma es justa y mansa o insociable y agreste.

La enemistad entre allegados se llama discordia; entre extraños, se llama guerra.

CALLICLES: There is no end to the rubbish this fellow speaks. Tell me, Socrates, aren't you ashamed at your age of laying these verbal traps and counting it a god-send if a man makes a slip of the tongue?

o semelhante sempre do semelhante se aproxima.

As being is to becoming, so is pure intellect to opinion. And as intellect is to opinion, so is science to belief, and understanding to the perception of shadows.

Podrás, pues, censurar un tenor de vida que nadie sería capaz de practicar sino siendo por naturaleza me­morioso, expedito en el estudio, elevado de mente, bien dispuesto, amigo y allegado de la verdad, de la justicia, del valor y de la templanza?

And when you see a man who is repining at the approach of death, is not his reluctance a sufficient proof that he is not a lover of wisdom, but a lover of the body, and probably at the same time a lover of either money or power, or both?

Y así, la posesión y práctica de lo que a cada uno es propio será reconocida como justicia.

la geometría es conocimiento de lo que siempre existe. -Entonces, ¡oh, mi noble amigo!, atraerá el alma hacia la verdad y formará mentes filosóficas que dirijan ha­cia arriba aquello que ahora dirigimos indebidamente hacia abajo.

there will be no injustice in compelling our philosophers to have a care and providence of others; we shall explain to them that in other States, men of their class are not obligated to share in the toils of politics: and this is reasonable, for they grow up at their own sweet will, and the government would rather not have them.

Que sobre todo objeto hay tres artes distintas: la de utilizarlo, la de fabricarlo y la de imitarlo?

Sigamos, pues, hablando y escuchando por turno, pero recordando antes el lugar en que describíamos las cualidades innatas que había de reunir forzosamente quien hubiera de ser hombre de bien. Y su principal y primera cualidad era, si lo recuerdas, la verdad, la cual debía él perseguir en todo asunto y por todas partes si no era un embustero que nada tuviese que ver con la verda­dera filosofía.

There is no need, however, to be angry at this ambition of theirs-- which may be forgiven; for every man ought to be loved who says and manfully pursues and works out anything which is at all like wisdom: at the same time we shall do well to see them as they really are.

For knowing their own inferiority, I suspect that they are too glad of equality.

I dare say that you remember, and therefore I need not remind you, that a lover, if he is worthy of the name, ought to show his love, not to some one part of that which he loves, but to the whole.

The difference between the two classes is often a trivial concern; but in a state, and when affecting really important matters, becomes of all disorders the most hateful.

The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways - I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows.