Quotes About Plato

Plato was right when he said that all evil comes from ignorance. He forgot that ignorance also comes from evil.

Heidegger says that "the fundamental question of metaphysics" is "why is there anything at all rather than nothing?" The fundamental question is not, as Plato thought, "what" a thing is (every Platonic dialogue is about that, about an essence, a definition, a concept, such as justice or piety or learning) but why it exists, why anything exists. Plato never asked that ultimate question. And the answer is God.

Plato considered the golden section proportion the most binding of all mathematical relations, making it the key to the physics of the cosmos.

The Mind is not talking to us but by means of us. Its narrative passes through us and its sorrow infuses us irrationally. As Plato discerned, there is a streak of the irrational in the World Soul.

When something begins to devour the world, a serious matter is taking place. If the devouring entity is evil or insane, the situation is not merely serious; it is grim. But Fat viewed the process the other way around. He viewed it exactly as Plato had viewed it in his own cosmology: the rational mind (noös) persuades the irrational (chance, blind determinism, ananke), into cosmos.

Did you know that Ubik is true, and we're in a sort of cave, like Plato said, and they're showing us endless funky films? And now and then reality breaks through, as in Ubik, from our friend who was here once and then died, but has turned back … he talked something about a new view of the Platonic forms, the archetypal forms. But he was unable to explain.

One or two factoids. Plato, né Aristocles, is c. 427–347 BCE; Aristotle is 384–322 BCE (compare Socrates at c. 470–399 and Zeno at c. 490–435). Aristotle was a former star pupil in Plato's Academy, the motto over the front door of which happened to be LET NO ONE WHO IS IGNORANT OF GEOMETRY ENTER HERE. 18

But I still has enough longing for that concept that I didn't want to dispel it completely. Meaning: I didn't want to tell Lily that I felt we'd all been duped by Plato and the idea of a soul mate. Just in case it turned out that she was mine.

There is indeed a fundamental beauty in mathematical abstractions. They so attracted the Greek philosopher Plato that he declared that all those things that we can see and touch are, in fact, mere shadows of the true reality and that the real things of this universe can be found only through the use of pure reason. Plato's knowledge of mathematics was relatively naive, and many of the cherished purities of Greek mathematics have been shown to be flawed.

Second, writing is dangerous for philosophy—and for serious scholarly practice in general. It's not because writing breaks from its origins as Plato would have it, but because writing is only one form of being. The long-standing assumption that we relate to the world only through language is a particularly fetid, if still bafflingly popular, opinion.

I remember seeing a stage version of Plato's 'Symposium' and being really moved because it was written by a man rather than a culture.

I fantasize that our politicians have been moved by the dialogues of Plato, and thus contemplate the ancient conflict of the sophists versus the lovers of truth.

If I were again beginning my studies, I would follow the advice of Plato and start with mathematics.

The soul takes nothing with her to the next world but her education and her culture. At the beginning of the journey to the next world, one's education and culture can either provide the greatest assistance, or else act as the greatest burden, to the person who has just died.

Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.

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

Man...is a tame or civilized animal; never the less, he requires proper instruction and a fortunate nature, and then of all animals he becomes the most divine and most civilized; but if he be insufficiently or ill- educated he is the most savage of earthly creatures.

Come then, and let us pass a leisure hour in storytelling, and our story shall be the education of our heroes.

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.

Lack of activity destroys the good condition of every human being

The soul of man is immortal and imperishable.

Then the lover, who is true and no counterfeit, must of necessity be loved by his love.

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.

They deem him their worst enemy who tells them the truth. -Plato, philosopher (427-347 BCE)