Quotes About Reality

How you, O Athenians, have been affected by my accusers, I cannot tell; but I know that they almost made me forget who I was—so persuasively did they speak; and yet they have hardly uttered a word of truth.

When the mind's eye is fixed on objects illuminated by truth and reality, it understands and knows them, and its possession of intelligence is evident; but when it is fixed on the twilight world of change and decay, it can only form opinions, its vision is confused and its opinions shifting, and it seems to lack intelligence.

but I want you to put him down.

And poets do really know the things about which they seem to the many to speak so well?

What about someone who believes in beautiful things but doesn't believe in the beautiful itself and isn't able to follow anyone who could lead him to the knowledge of it? Don't you think he is living in a dream rather than a wakened state? Isn't this dreaming: whether asleep or awake, to think that a likeness is not a likeness but rather the thing itself that it is like?

Both knowledge and truth are beautiful things, but the good is other and more beautiful than they.

Por tanto, ven tanto, de los que perciben muchas cosas bellas, pero no ven lo bello en sí ni pueden seguir a otro que a ello los conduzca y asimismo ven muchas cosas justas, pero no lo justo en sí, y de igual manera todo lo demás, diremos que opinan de todo, pero que no conocen nada de aquello sobre qué opinan.

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.

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 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.

Los que gustan de contemplar la verdad

Wenn etwas irgendwie wird, oder irgend etwas leidet: so wird es nicht, weil es ein Werdendes ist, sondern weil es wird ist es ein Werdendes; noch weil es ein Leidendes ist leidet es; sondern weil es leidet, ist es ein Leidendes.

I, on the other hand, have a convincing witness that I speak the truth, my poverty.

Son, indiscutiblemente, difíciles de desenmascarar, pues ni siquiera es posible hacerles subir a este estrado para que den la cara y puedan ser interrogados, por lo que me veo obligado, como vulgarmente se dice, a batirme contra las sombras y a refutar sus argumentos sin que nadie me replique.

Coloro che sono capaci di vedere oltre le ombre e le bugie della propria cultura non saranno mai capiti, tanto meno creduti, dalle masse.

what is it that always is, but never comes to be, and what is it that comes to be† but never is?

Every class, then, has plurality of being and infinity of not-being.

I should not be surprised that Euripides' lines are true when he says: 'But who knows whether being alive is being dead And being dead is being alive?

I think that you or anyone else who claims that there is an absolute idea of each thing would agree in the first place that none of them exists in us. No, for if it did, it would no longer be absolute.

But can that which does not exist have anything pertaining or belonging to it? Of course not. Then the one has no name, nor is there any description or knowledge or perception or opinion of it....And it is neither named nor described nor thought of nor known, nor does any existing thing perceive it.

Since there has been shown to be false speech and false opinion, there may be imitations of real existences, and out of this condition of the mind an art of deception may arise

Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light Plato Allegory of the Cave

The sphere of sense, the Soul in its slumber; for all of the Soul that is in body is asleep and the true getting-up is not bodily but from the body: in any movement that takes the body with it there is no more than passage from sleep to sleep, from bed to bed.

Truth, sir, is a cow that will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull. —SAMUEL JOHNSON