Quotes About Plato

The rest of the Dialogue of Critias has been lost.

SOCRATES: But you do say that he who is a good rhapsode is also a good general. ION: Certainly.

In the age of Plato there was no regular mode of publication, and an author would have the less scruple in altering or adding to a work which was known only to a few of his friends.

And now, Athenians, I am not going to argue for my own sake, as you may think, but for yours, that you may not sin against the God by condemning me, who am his gift to you.

Aphrodite cried at Knidos when she saw Aphrodite: O Zeus! Where did Praxiteles see me naked?

The Philebus appears to be one of the later writings of Plato

I am that gadfly which God has attached to the state, and all day long and in all places am always fastening upon you, arousing and persuading and reproaching you.

I am a sailor's tomb. Beside me lies a farmer. Hell is the same, under the land and sea.

After a moment's pause, in which he made a real manly effort to think, he said: My opinion is, Socrates, that temperance makes a man ashamed or modest, and that temperance is the same as modesty. Very good, I said; and did you not admit, just now, that temperance is noble?

And is not shrewdness a quickness or cleverness of the soul, and not a quietness?

From this tale, Callicles, which I have heard and believe, I draw the following inferences:—Death, if I am right, is in the first place the separation from one another of two things, soul and body; nothing else.

SOCRATES: What events? POLUS: You see, I presume, that Archelaus the son of Perdiccas is now the ruler of Macedonia? SOCRATES: At any rate I hear that he is. POLUS: And do you think that he is happy or miserable? SOCRATES: I cannot say, Polus, for I have never had any acquaintance with him.

SOCRATES: On the other hand, if the unjust be not punished, then, according to you, he will be happy? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: But in my opinion, Polus, the unjust or doer of unjust actions is miserable in any case,—more miserable, however, if he be not punished and does not meet with retribution, and less miserable if he be punished and meets with retribution at the hands of gods and men. POLUS: You are maintaining a strange doctrine, Socrates.

There are two things which should be cultivated in the soul: first, the greatest courage; secondly, the greatest fear.

LACHES: True. SOCRATES: And now on the contrary we are saying that the foolish endurance, which was before held in dishonour, is courage. LACHES: Very true. SOCRATES: And are we right in saying so? LACHES: Indeed, Socrates, I am sure that we are not right.

Even the fragments of his words when 'repeated at second-hand' (Symp.) have in all ages ravished the hearts of men, who have seen reflected in them their own higher nature. He is the father of idealism in philosophy, in politics, in literature. And many of the latest conceptions of modern thinkers and statesmen, such as the unity of knowledge, the reign of law, and the equality of the sexes, have been anticipated in a dream by him.

LACHES: I think that you put the question to him very well, Socrates; and I would like him to say what is the nature of this knowledge or wisdom. NICIAS: I mean to say, Laches, that courage is the knowledge of that which inspires fear or confidence in war, or in anything. LACHES: How strangely he is talking, Socrates.

Dear Crito, your zeal is invaluable, if a right one; but if wrong, the greater the zeal the greater the danger;

Yes; the meaning is only too clear. But, oh! my beloved Socrates, let me entreat you once more to take my advice and escape.

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.

O that we were wise, Ion, and that you could truly call us so; but you rhapsodes and actors, and the poets whose verses you sing, are wise; whereas I am a common man, who only speaks the truth. For consider what a very commonplace and trivial things this which I have said - a thing which any man might say: that when a man has acquired a knowledge of a whole art, the enquiry into good and bad is one and the same.

Then not he who does evil, but he who does good, is temperate? Yes, he said; and you, friend, would agree. No matter whether I should or not; just now, not what I think, but what you are saying, is the point at issue. Well, he answered; I mean to say, that he who does evil, and not good, is not temperate; and that he is temperate who does good, and not evil: for temperance I define in plain words to be the doing of good actions.

SOCRATES: Will you understand my answer? Rhetoric, according to my view, is the ghost or counterfeit of a part of politics. POLUS: And noble or ignoble? SOCRATES: Ignoble, I should say, if I am compelled to answer, for I call what is bad ignoble: though I doubt whether you understand what I was saying before. GORGIAS: Indeed, Socrates, I cannot say that I understand myself.

I didn't want to tell Lily that I felt we'd all been duped by Plato and the idea of a soulmate. Just in case it turned out that she was mine.