Quotes About Plato

Plato was suspicious of writing which seems to remove knowledge from the present moment of the individual and lodge it elsewhere, in books, which are inert and cannot defend themselves against fools.

The sea, the sea, yes,' James went on. 'Did you know that Plato was descended from Poseidon on his father's side? Do you have porpoises, seals?' 'There are seals, I'm told. I haven't seen any.

I've almost finished The Republic. I find Plato at times a vile casuist, and almost always a reactionary. But he does write exquisite Greek.

Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul.

Art-speech is the only truth. An artist is usually a damned liar but his art, if it be art, will tell you the truth of his day. And that is all that matters. Away with eternal truth. The truth lives from day to day, and the marvelous Plato of yesterday is chiefly bosh today.

If you want to understand democracy, spend less time in the library with Plato, and more time in the buses with people.

Newton wrote, "Amicus Plato amicus Aristoteles magis amica veritas." That is Latin for, "Plato is my friend, Aristotle is my friend, but my best friend is truth." When

In his scientific notebook, Newton wrote, "Amicus Plato amicus Aristoteles magis amica veritas." That is Latin for, "Plato is my friend, Aristotle is my friend, but my best friend is truth.

yes, the real miracles are the thousands of tiny people who know exactly what they are doing. I used to look for inspiration in higher places but the higher you go like to Plato or God the less space there is in which to stand.

as Plato and his pupil Aristotle understood, the building of empire, any empire, extinguishes democracy. Empire requires a centralized bureaucracy. Its complexity mandates a permanent caste of bureaucrats and military leaders who strip the citizenry of power.

A failed democracy, Plato warned, creates the conditions for tyranny based on popular support.

There were no musicians or dancers, for Plato believed that educated men ought to be capable of entertaining themselves by speaking and listening in turns in an orderly manner.

Before Plato could describe love, the loved one had to be invented. We would never love anybody if we could see past our invention. Bosie is my creation, my poem. In the mirror of invention, love discovered itself.

For Plato, forms exist by themselves, in an ethereal ideal world of forms, a world of "ideas." The idea of a horse exists prior to and independently of any actual horse. For Plato, a real horse is nothing but a pale reflection of the idea of a horse. The atoms that make up the horse count for little: what counts is the "horseness," the abstract form.

To put it simply, for Plato change equals death and decay. Since the body is the location of death and decay, the human body and all bodies were found lacking. Plato found change so problematic that he imagined divine power existing totally apart from the changing world, as we have seen. God not only did not have a body; he was also separate from all bodies. This is the first theological mistake.

All thought is naught but a footnote to Plato.

Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety.

I have read in Plato and Cicero sayings that are wise and very beautiful; but I have never read in either of them: Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden.

The god, O men, seems to me to be really wise; and by his oracle to mean this, that the wisdom of this world is foolishness and of none effect.

Was not this ... what we spoke of as the great advantage of wisdom -- to know what is known and what is unknown to us?

But now the giant heads of Plato and Socrates, each with an expression of penetrating wisdom carved on his white features, surveyed the river and the melon beds beyond.

Plato had defined Man as an animal, biped and featherless, and was applauded. Diogenes plucked a fowl and brought it into the lecture-room with the words, "Behold Plato's man!"

Then there is Plato on human happiness: "The greatest wealth is to live content with little.

Plato wove historical fact into literary myth.