Plato Wisdom Quotes

#1. A library of wisdom, is more precious than all wealth, and all things that are desirable cannot be compared to it. Whoever therefore claims to be zealous of truth, of happiness, of wisdom or knowledge, must become a lover of books.

Plato

#2. Ideas are the source of all things

Plato

#3. Behold, he said, the wisdom of Socrates; he refuses to teach himself, and goes about learning of others, to whom he never even says Thank you.

Plato

#4. Those wretches who never have experienced the sweets of wisdom and virtue, but spend all their time in revels and debauches, sink downward day after day, and make their whole life one continued series of errors.

Plato

#5. Knowledge without justice ought to be called cunning rather than wisdom.

Plato

#6. Then we shan't regard anyone as a lover of knowledge or wisdom who is fussy about what he studies ...

Plato

#7. The wisest have the most authority

Plato

#8. But he who has been earnest in the love of knowledge and of true wisdom, and has exercised his intellect more than any other part of him, must have thoughts immortal and divine. If he attain truth, and in so far as human nature is capable of sharing in immortality, he must altogether be immortal.

Plato

#9. Thinking is the soul talking to itself.

Plato

#10. [Books] may sleep for a while and be neglected; but whenever the desire of information springs up in the human breast, there they are with mild wisdom ready to instruct and please us.

Ann Plato

#11. Today Plato is nearly forgotten. His beliefs include the notion that people who govern should be intelligent, rational, self-controlled, and in love with wisdom, an idea that has long been discredited.

Bobby Henderson

#12. Truthfulness. He will never willingly tolerate an untruth, but will hate it as much as he loves truth ... And is there anything more closely connected with wisdom than truth?

Plato

#13. For this feeling of wonder shows that you are a philosopher, since wonder is the only beginning of philosophy.

Plato

#14. And tell him it's quite true that the best of the philosophers are of no use to their fellows; but that he should blame, not the philosophers, but those who fail to make use of them.

Plato

#15. Wisdom is a blaze, kindled by a leaping spark.

Plato

#16. According to Diotima, Love is not a god at all, but is rather a spirit that mediates between people and the objects of their desire. Love is neither wise nor beautiful, but is rather the desire for wisdom and beauty.

Plato

#17. Wisdom alone is the science of other sciences.

Plato

#18. The wisest of you men is he who has realized, like Socrates, that in respect of wisdom he is really worthless.

Plato

#19. Neither do the ignorant love wisdom or desire to become wise; for this is the grievous thing about ignorance, that those who are neither good nor beautiful think they are good enough, and do not desire that which they do not think they are lacking.

Plato

#20. O dear Pan and all the other gods of this place, grant that I may be beautiful inside. Let all my external possessions be in friendly harmony with what is within. May I consider the wise man rich. As for gold, let me have as much as a moderate man could bear and carry with him.

Plato

#21. the creative soul creates not children, but conceptions of wisdom and virtue,

Plato

#22. It seems to us unwise to have insisted on teaching geometry to the younger Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, in order to make him a good king, but from Plato's point of view it was essential. He was sufficiently Pythagorean to think that without mathematics no true wisdom is possible.

Bertrand Russell

#23. There you have Socrates' wisdom; [b] he himself isn't willing to teach, but he goes around learning from others and isn't even grateful to them.

Plato

#24. Many receive a criticism and think it is fine; think they got their money's worth; think well of the teacher for it, and then go on with their work just the same as before. That is the reason much of the wisdom of Plato is still locked up in the pages of Plato.

Robert Henri

#25. That man is wisest who, like Socrates, realizes that his wisdom is worthless

Plato

#26. Knowledge of the soul is the only universal truth and the only wisdom - all other knowledge is transient.

Plato

#27. There is no need, however, to be angry at this ambition of theirs
which may be forgiven; for every man ought to be loved who says and manfully pursues and works out anything which is at all like wisdom: at the same time we shall do well to see them as they really are.

Plato

#28. The man who makes everything that leads to happiness depends upon himself, and not upon other men, has adopted the very best plan for living happily. This is the man of moderation, the man of manly character and of wisdom.

Plato

#29. The matter is as it is in all other cases: if it is naturally in you to be a good orator, a notable orator you will be when you have acquired knowledge and practice ...

Plato

#30. ..they all emulated and admired and were students of Spartan education, could tell their wisdom was of this sort by the brief but memorable remarks they each uttered when they met, writing what is on every man's lips: Know thyself, and Nothing too much.

Plato

#31. When something goes wrong, accuse yourself first. Even the wisdom of Plato or Solomon can wobble and go blind

Rumi

#32. It was modesty that invented the word "philosopher" in Greece and left the magnificent overweening presumption in calling oneselfwise to the actors of the spirit
the modesty of such monsters of pride and sovereignty as Pythagoras, as Plato.

Friedrich Nietzsche

#33. There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain.

Plato

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

Plato

#35. The fear of death is indeed the pretence of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being the appearance of knowing the unknown.

Plato

#36. Perfect wisdom has four parts: Wisdom, the principle of doing things aright. Justice, the principle of doing things equally in public and private. Fortitude, the principle of not fleeing danger, but meeting it. Temperance, the principle of subduing desires and living moderately.

Plato

#37. 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

Plato

#38. I thought to myself: I am wiser than this man; neither of us probably knows anything that is really good, but he thinks he has knowledge, when he has not, while I, having no knowledge, do not think I have.

Plato

#39. Mankind will never see an end of trouble until lovers of wisdom come to hold political power, or the holders of power become lovers of wisdom

Plato

#40. John Adams was a farmer, Abraham Lincoln a small town lawyer. Plato and Socrates were teachers. Jesus was a carpenter. To equate wisdom and judgement with occupation is at best insulting.

Mark Sheppard

#41. Rather I think that a man who ... is willing ... to value learning as long as he lives, not supposing that old age brings him wisdom of itself, will necessarily pay more attention to the rest of his life.

Plato

#42. You must base the Wisdom on Love.

Plato

#43. They asked for Plato's assistance. He told them: "You hated wisdom and ran away from geometry, therefore God has afflicted you a punishment, for wisdom and philosophical knowledge have a high rank with God." ... The plague was lifted and they ceased to defame the branches of theoretical knowledge.

Mulla Sadra

#44. You must contrive for your future rulers another and a better life than that of a ruler, and then you may have a well-ordered State; for only in the State which offers this, will they rule who are truly rich, not in silver and gold, but in virtue and wisdom, which are the true blessings of life.

Plato

#45. 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.

J.G. Farrell

#46. If you are wise, all men will be your friends and kindred, for you will be useful.

Plato

#47. Someday, in the distant future, our grand-children' s grand-children will develop a new equivalent of our classrooms. They will spend many hours in front of boxes with fires glowing within. May they have the wisdom to know the difference between light and knowledge.

Plato

#48. 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.

Plato

#49. They (the poets) are to us in a manner the fathers and authors of the wisdom.

Plato

#50. The object of knowledge is what exists and its function to know about reality.

Plato

#51. Cunning ... is but the low mimic of wisdom.

Plato

#52. I know not how I may seem to others, but to myself I am but a small child wandering upon the vast shores of knowledge, every now and then finding a small bright pebble to content myself with

Plato

#53. Those whose hearts are fixed on Reality itself deserve the title of Philosophers.

Plato

#54. Then Prometheus, in his perplexity as to what preservation he could devise, stole from Hephaestus and Athena wisdom in the arts together with fire
since by no means without fire could it be acquired or helpfully used by any
and he handed it there and then as a gift to man.

Plato

#55. Wisdom always makes men fortunate: for by wisdom no man could ever err, and therefore he must act rightly and succeed, or his wisdom would be wisdom no longer.

Plato

#56. 'But the man who is ready to taste every form of knowledge, is glad to learn and never satisfied - he's the man who deserves to be called a philosopher, isn't he?'

Plato

#57. And isn't it a bad thing to be deceived about the truth, and a good thing to know what the truth is? For I assume that by knowing the truth you mean knowing things as they really are.

Plato

#58. Neither human wisdom nor divine inspiration can confer upon man any greater blessing than this [live a life of happiness and harmony here on earth].

Plato