Quotes About Plato

to suffer is better than to do evil;' and the art of rhetoric is described as only useful for the purpose of self-accusation.

longest of his works

If then virtue is something in the soul, and necessarily good, it must be a matter of mindfulness. For all other qualities of soul are in themselves neither good nor harmful. As accompanied by forethought or thoughtlessness, they become good or harmful. This argument shows that virtue, being good, must be a kind of mindfulness.

En efecto, atenienses, temer la muerte no es otra cosa que creer ser sabio sin serlo, pues es creer que uno sabe lo que no sabe. Pues nadie conoce la muerte, ni siquiera si es, precisamente, el mayor de todos los bienes para el hombre, pero la temen como si supieran con certeza que es el mayor de los males.

But which stories do you mean, he said; and what fault do you find with them? A fault which is most serious, I said; the fault of telling a lie, and, what is more, a bad lie. But when is this fault committed? Whenever an erroneous representation is made of the nature of gods and heroes,—as when a painter paints a portrait not having the shadow of a likeness to the original. Yes

SOCRATES: This, in turn, is to be able to cut up each kind according to its species along its natural joints, and to try not to splinter any part, as a bad butcher might do. In just this way, our two speeches placed all [266] mental derangements into one common kind.

Not by the Platonic device of uniting the strong and fair with the strong and fair, regardless of sentiment and morality, nor yet by his other device of combining dissimilar natures (Statesman), have mankind gradually passed from the brutality and licentiousness of primitive marriage to marriage Christian and civilized. Few

And this is because injustice creates divisions and hatreds and fighting, and justice imparts harmony and friendship; is not that true, Thrasymachus? I agree, he said, because I do not wish to quarrel with you.

I believe that Periander or Perdiccas or Xerxes or Ismenias the Theban, or some other rich and mighty man, who had a great opinion of his own power, was the first to say that justice is 'doing good to your friends and harm to your enemies.

It has been objected that justice is honesty in the sense of Glaucon and Adeimantus, but is taken by Socrates to mean all virtue.

there are some, both at present and of old, who recognized that Spartanizing is much more a love of wisdom than a love of physical exercise, knowing that the ability to utter such remarks belong to a a perfectly educated man.

Y no diremos también, amigo, que los hombres, al ser dañados, se hacen peores en lo que toca a la virtud humana? -Ni más ni menos. -¿ Y la justicia no es virtud humana? -También esto es forzoso. -Necesario es, por tanto, querido amigo, que los hombres que reciben daño se hagan más injustos. -Eso parece.

what they love pious or holy; and what some of them love and others hate is both or neither. Shall this be our definition of piety and impiety?

We should not allow into our minds the conviction that argumentation has nothing sound about it; much rather we should believe that it is we who are not yet sound and that we must take courage and be eager to attain soundness, you and the others for the sake of your whole life still to come, and I for the sake of death itself.

Surely the gods are just? Granted that they are. But if so, the unjust will be the enemy of the gods, and the just will be their friend?

that any state of action or passion implies previous action or passion. It does not become because it is becoming, but it is in a state of becoming because it becomes; neither does it suffer because it is in a state of suffering, but it is in a state of suffering because it suffers.

No creo que el cuerpo, por bien constituido que esté, domine por su perfección al alma buena; por el contrario, creo que el alma, cuando es buena, imprime al cuerpo, como un efecto de su propia excelencia, toda la perfección de que es capaz." (Platón, República).

en el alma, ningún conocimiento forzado es perdurable." (Platón, República).

The argument of the Republic is the search after Justice

The ruin of oligarchy is the ruin of democracy; for there is a law of contraries; the excess of freedom passes into the excess of slavery, and the greater the freedom the greater the slavery.

And so Love set in order the empire of the gods - the love of beauty, as is evident, for with deformity Love has no concern [. . .] Since the birth of Love, and from the Love of the beautiful, has sprung every good in heaven and earth.

there is simple ignorance, which is the source of lighter offences, and double ignorance, which is accompanied by a conceit of wisdom; and he who is under the influence of the latter fancies that he knows all about matters of which he knows nothing.

Such was the end of our comrade, Echecrates, a man who, we would say, was of all those we have known the best, and also the wisest and the most upright.

La filosofía es la geometría de las ideas