Quotes About Philosophy

The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death.

A dog has the soul of a philosopher.

He was a wise man who invented God.

In practice people who study philosophy too long become very odd birds, not to say thoroughly vicious; while even those who are the best of them are reduced by...[philosophy] to complete uselessness as members of society.

Knowledge is the food of the soul.

Money-makers are tiresome company, as they have no standard but cash value.

Ideas are the source of all things

Men of Athens, I honor and love you; but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy... Understand that I shall never alter my ways, not even if I have to die many times.

when he looks at Beauty in the only way that Beauty can be seen - only then will it become possible for him to give birth not to images of virtue (because he's in touch with no images), but to true virtue [arete] (because he is in touch with true Beauty). The love of the gods belongs to anyone who has given to true virtue and nourished it, and if any human being could become immortal, it would be he.

Time is the moving image of reality

According to Diotima, Love is not a god at all, but is rather a spirit that mediates between people and the objects of their desire. Love is neither wise nor beautiful, but is rather the desire for wisdom and beauty.

Is there a perfect world?

When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income.

I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning.

It is the task of the enlightened not only to ascend to learning and to see the good but to be willing to descend again to those prisoners and to share their troubles and their honors, whether they are worth having or not. And this they must do, even with the prospect of death.

a life without investigation is not worth living

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

The soul of man is immortal and imperishable.

And Agathon said, It is probable, Socrates, that I knew nothing of what I had said. And yet spoke you beautifully, Agathon, he said.

The man deserved his fate, deny it who can; yes, but the fate did not deserve the man.

for the unexamined life is not worth living.

Love is of something, and that which love desires is not that which love is or has; for no man desires that which he is or has. And love is of the beautiful, and therefore has not the beautiful. And the beautiful is the good, and therefore, in wanting and desiring the beautiful, love also wants and desires the good.

T]hose who practice philosophy in the right way are in training for dying and they fear death least of all men.

And isn't it a bad thing to be deceived about the truth, and a good thing to know what the truth is? For I assume that by knowing the truth you mean knowing things as they really are.