Quotes About Plato

the good are not so by nature...For if they were, this would follow: if the good were so by nature, we would have people who knew which among the young were good by nature; we would take those whom they had pointed out and guard them in the Acropolis, sealing them up there much more carefully than gold so that no one could corrupt them, and when they reached maturity they would be useful to their cities.

You wouldn't know him if I told you the name. HIPPIAS: But I know right now he's an ignoramus.

For, let me tell you that the more the pleasures of the body fade away, the greater to me are the pleasure and charm of conversation.

love,' she said, 'may be described generally as the love of the everlasting possession of the good?

Beauty is certainly a soft, smooth, slippery thing, and therefore of a nature which easily slips in and permeates our souls.

They say that to do injustice is, by nature, good; to suffer injustice, evil; but that the evil is greater than the good.

The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. I do not mean the systematic scheme of thought which scholars have doubtfully extracted from his writings. I allude to the wealth of general ideas scattered through them.

Let this then be one of our rules and principles concerning the gods, to which our poets and reciters will be expected to conform --that God is not the author of all things, but of good only.

To go to the world below, having a soul which is like a vessel full of injustice, is the last and worst of all the evils

The vulgar love of the body which takes wing and flies away when the bloom of youth is over, is disgraceful, and so is the interested love of power or wealth; but the love of the noble mind is lasting.

There is no greater evil one can suffer than to hate reasonable discourse.

A philosopher has the moderate love for wisdom and the courage to act according to wisdom. Wisdom is knowledge about the Good or the right relations between all that exists. Wherein

I do not know, men of Athens, how my accusers affected you; as for me, I was almost carried away in spite of myself, so persuasively did they speak. And yet, hardly anything of what they said is true.

is to the original as the sphere of opinion is to the sphere of knowledge? Most undoubtedly.

Something of this kind, I replied:–God is always to be represented as he truly is, whatever be the sort of poetry, epic, lyric or tragic, in which the representation is given. Right. And is he not truly good? and must he not be represented as such? Certainly.

We may state the question thus:—Imitation imitates the actions of men, whether voluntary or involuntary, on which, as they imagine, a good or bad result has ensued, and they rejoice or sorrow accordingly. Is there anything more? No, there is nothing else. But

So then, perhaps there would be more justice in the bigger and it would be easier to observe closely. If you want, first we'll investigate what justice is like in the cities. Then, we'll also go on to consider it in individuals, considering the likeness of the bigger in the idea24 of the littler?

Now in this island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire which had rule over the whole island and several others, and over parts of the continent, and, furthermore, the men of Atlantis had subjected the parts of Libya within the columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia.

Tell me, Socrates, have you got a nurse? Why do you ask such a question, I said, when you ought rather to be answering? Because she leaves you to snivel, and never wipes your nose: she has not even taught you to know the shepherd from the sheep. What makes you say that? I replied.

This then is injustice; and on the other hand when the trader, the auxiliary, and the guardian each do their own business, that is justice, and will make the city just. I agree with you. We

Stranger: 'Are not thought and speech the same, with this exception, that what is called thought is the unuttered conversation of the soul with herself? Theatetus: Quite true. Stranger: But the stream of thought which flows through the lips and is audible is called speech? Theatetus: True. Stranger: And we know that there exists in speech... Theatetus: What exists? Stranger: Affirmation Theatetus: Yes, we know it.

Then you will make a law that they shall have such an education as will enable them to attain the greatest skill in asking and answering questions? Yes, he said, you and I together will make it. Dialectic, then, as you will agree, is the coping-stone of the sciences, and is set over them; no other science can be placed higher—the nature of knowledge can no further go? I agree, he said. But to whom we

Some say there are nine Muses. Count again. Behold the tenth: Sappho of Lesbos.

When [a man] thinks that he is reasoning he is really disputing, just because he cannot define and divide, and so know that of which he is speaking; and he will pursue a merely verbal opposition in the spirit of contention and not of fair discussion.