Who Is Plato Quotes

#1. The blame is his who chooses: God is blameless.

Plato

#2. He who is of a calm and happy nature, will hardly feel the pressure of age

Plato

#3. Do you mean that the tyrant will dare to use violence against the people who fathered him, and raise his hand against them if they oppose him? So the tyrant is a parricide, and little comfort to his old parent.

Plato

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

Plato

#5. The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the government of worse men.

Plato

#6. He who is of calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden.

Plato

#7. It is only the dead who have seen the end of war.

Plato

#8. Nothing could be more important than that the work of a soldier is well done. No tools will make a man a skilled workmen, or master of defense, or be of any use to him who has not learned how to handle them and has never bestowed any attention on them.

Plato

#9. So where it is a general rule that it is wrong to gratify lovers, this can be attributed to the defects of those who make that rule: the government's lust for rule and the subjects' cowardice

Plato

#10. Of course, he said, he who is of a certain nature, is like those who are
of a certain nature; he who is not, not.

Plato

#11. There is nothing which for my part I like better, Cephalus, than conversing with aged men; for I regard them as travellers who have gone a journey which I too may have to go, and of whom I ought to inquire, whether the way is smooth and easy, or rugged and difficult.

Plato

#12. 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

#13. In one sense it is evident that the art of kingship does include the art of lawmaking. But the political ideal is not full authority for laws but rather full authority for a man who understands the art of kingship and has kingly ability.

Plato

#14. The happiest man is he who has no trace of malice in his soul. PLATO

Matthieu Ricard

#15. 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

#16. Being well satisfied that, for a man who thinks himself to be somebody, there is nothing more disgraceful than to hold himself up as honored, not on his own account, but for the sake of his forefathers. Yet hereditary honors are a noble and splendid treasure to descendants.

Plato

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

Plato

#18. He who without the Muse's madness in his soul comes knocking at the door of poesy and thinks that art will make him anything fit to be called a poet, finds that the poetry which he indites in his sober senses is beaten hollow by the poetry of madmen.

Plato

#19. Those who intend on becoming great should love neither themselves nor their own things, but only what is just, whether it happens to be done by themselves or others.

Plato

#20. He who does not desire power is fit to hold it.

Plato

#21. And Pythagoras is reported to have been a disciple of Sonches the Egyptian arch-prophet; and Plato, of Sechnuphis of Heliopolis; and Eudoxus, of Cnidius of Konuphis, who was also an Egyptian.
[Stromata, 1.15]

Clement Of Alexandria

#22. No man should be angry with what is true.

Plato

#23. We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.

Plato

#24. No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth.

Plato

#25. He who is only an athlete is too crude, too vulgar, too much a savage. He who is a scholar only is too soft, to effeminate. The ideal citizen is the scholar athlete, the man of thought and the man of action.

Plato

#26. For every man who has learned to fight in arms will desire to learn the proper arrangement of an army, which is the sequel of the lesson.

Plato

#27. A person who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he or she ought only to consider whether in doing anything he or she is doing right or wrong- acting the part of a good person or a bad person.

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. 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

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

Plato

#31. He who is learning and learning and doesn't apply what he knows is like the one who is plowing and plowing and doesn't seed.

Plato

#32. Just as the banqueteers are drunk from wine, the citizens are drunk from fears, hopes, desires, and aversions and are therefore in need of being ruled by a man who is sober.

Leo Strauss

#33. There is nothing I like better than conversing with aged men. For I regard them as travelers who have gone a journey which I too may have to go, and of whom I ought to inquire whether the way is smooth and easy or rugged and difficult. Is life harder toward the end, or what report do you give it?

Plato

#34. For it is not because they fear doing unjust deeds, but because they fear suffering them, that those who blame injustice do so.

Plato

#35. So their combinations with themselves and with each other give rise to endless complexities, which anyone who is to give a likely account of reality must survey.

Plato

#36. From Plato: the man who has an elevated mind and takes a view of all time and of all substance, dost thou suppose it possible for him to think that human life is anything great? It is not possible, he said. Such a man then will think that death also is no evil.

Marcus Aurelius

#37. Rhythm and harmony enter most powerfully into the inner most part of the soul and lay forcible hands upon it, bearing grace with them, so making graceful him who is rightly trained.

Plato

#38. For he who is a corrupter of the laws is more than likely to be a corrupter of the young and foolish portion of mankind.

Plato

#39. He who commits injustice is ever made more wretched than he who suffers it.

Plato

#40. 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

#41. The soul of him who has education is whole and perfect and escapes the worst disease, but, if a man's education be neglected, he walks lamely through life and returns good for nothing to the world below.

Plato

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

Plato

#43. He who is a useful keeper of anything is also a better thief.

Plato

#44. He who is not a good servant will not be a good master.

Plato

#45. To him who disgraces his family life is no life, and to such a person there is no one a friend, neither while living nor when dead.

Plato

#46. Herein is the evil of ignorance, that he who is neither good nor wise is nevertheless satisfied with himself: he had no desire for that of which he feels no want.

Plato

#47. Wisest is he who knows what he does not know.

Plato

#48. Then who is more miserable? One of whom I am about to speak. Who is that? He who is of a tyrannical nature, and instead of leading a private life has been cursed with the further misfortune of being a public tyrant. From

Plato

#49. The man who finds that in the course of his life he has done a lot of wrong often wakes up at night in terror, like a child with a nightmare, and his life is full of foreboding: but the man who is conscious of no wrongdoing is filled with cheerfulness and with the comfort of old age.

Plato

#50. The community suffers nothing very terrible if its cobblers are bad and become degenerate and pretentious; but if the Guardians of its laws and constitution, who alone have the opportunity to bring it good government and prosperity, become a mere sham, then clearly it is completely ruined.

Plato

#51. Haven't you noticed that opinion without knowledge is always a poor thing? At the best it is blind - isn't anyone who holds a true opinion without understanding like a blind man on the right road?

Plato

#52. For he who would proceed aright ... should begin in youth to visit beautiful forms ... out of that he should create fair thoughts; and soon he will of himself perceive that the beauty of one form is akin to the beauty of another, and that beauty in every form is one and the same.

Plato

#53. What did Plato say?" "He said, 'It is only the dead who have seen the end of war.'" "And

Elizabeth Hunter

#54. What of his beard? Are you not of Homer's opinion, who says Youth is most charming when the beard first appears?

Plato

#55. He said: Who then are the true philosophers? Those, I said, who are lovers of the vision of truth. That is also good, he said; but I should like to know what you mean? To

Plato

#56. To honor with hymns and panegyrics those who are still alive is not safe; a man should run his course and make a fair ending, and then we will praise him; and let praise be given equally to women as well as men who have been distinguished in virtue.

Plato

#57. A village idiot, in the literal sense, who really loves the truth, even when he only babbles, is in his thinking infinitely superior to Aristotle. He is infinitely nearer to Plato than Aristotle ever was.

Simone Weil

#58. The Muse herself makes some men inspired, from whom a chain of other men is strung out who catch their own inspiration from theirs.

Plato

#59. What difference is there, do you think, between those in Plato's cave who can only marvel at the shadows and images of various objects, provided they are content and don't know what they miss, and the philosopher who has emerged from the cave and sees the real things?

Desiderius Erasmus

#60. Harmony that would fittingly imitate the utterances and accents of a brave man who is engaged in warfare or in any enforced business, and who, when he has failed [ ... ] confronts fortune with steadfast endurance and repels her strokes

Plato

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

Plato

#62. For it is likely that if a city of good men came to be, there would be a fight over not ruling, just as there is now over ruling; and there it would become manifest that a true ruler really does not naturally consider his own advantage but rather that of the one who is ruled.

Plato

#63. 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

#64. Hope,' he says, 'cherishes the soul of him who lives in justice and holiness, and is the nurse of his age and the companion of his journey; - hope which is mightiest to sway the restless soul of man.

Plato

#65. The wise man will want to be ever with him who is better than himself.

Plato

#66. Then the imitative poet who aims at being popular is not by nature made, nor is his art intended, to please or to affect the rational principle in the soul; but he will prefer the passionate and fitful temper, which is easily imitated? Clearly. And

Plato

#67. The ruler who is good for anything ought not to beg his subjects to be ruled by him, although the present governors of mankind are of a different stamp.

Plato

#68. No man should bring children into the world who is unwilling to persevere to the end in their nature and education.

Plato

#69. The man who lives in contact with what he believes to be a living Church is a man always expecting to meet Plato and Shakespeare to-morrow at breakfast. He is always expecting to see some truth that he has never seen before.

G.K. Chesterton

#70. That politician who curries favor with the citizens and indulges them and fawns upon them and has a presentiment of their wishes, and is skillful in gratifying them, he is esteemed a great statesman.

Plato

#71. Experience proves that anyone who has studied geometry is infinitely quicker to grasp difficult subjects than one who has not.

Plato

#72. He who advises a sick man, whose manner of life is prejudicial to health, is clearly bound first of all to change his patient's manner of life.

Plato

#73. A man who is eating or lying with his wife or preparing to go to sleep in humility, thankfulness and temperance, is, by Christian standards, in an infinitely higher state than one who is listening to Bach or reading Plato in a state of pride.

C.S. Lewis

#74. If a man says that it is right to give every one his due, and therefore thinks within his own mind that injury is due from a just man to his enemies but kindness to his friends, he was not wise who said so, for he spoke not the truth, for in no case has it appeared to be just to injure any one.

Plato

#75. Man is a prisoner who has no right to open the door of his prison and run away ... A man should wait, and not take his own life until God summons him.

Plato

#76. He is unworthy of the name of man who is ignorant of the fact that the diagonal of a square is incommensurable with its side.

Plato

#77. Who are the true philosophers? Those whose passion is to love the truth.

Plato

#78. Then, when the rhetorician is more persuasive than the physician, the ignorant is more persuasive with the ignorant than he who has knowledge? - is not that the inference?

Plato

#79. '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

#80. He who refuses to rule is liable to be ruled by one who is worse than himself.

Plato

#81. Perhaps there is a pattern set up in the heavens for one who desires to see it, and having seen it, to find one in himself.

Plato

#82. It is easy to forgive children who are afraid of the dark but the real tragedy of life is men who are afraid of the light.

Plato

#83. The true creator is necessity, who is the mother of our invention.

Plato

#84. Where reverence is, there is fear; for he who has a feeling of reverence and shame about the commission of any action, fears and is afraid of an ill reputation.

Plato

#85. How is the soul profited by the strife of Hector, the arguments of Plato, the poems of Virgil, or the elegies of Ovid, who, with others like them, are now gnashing their teeth in the prison of the infernal Babylon, under the cruet tyranny of Pluto?

Honorius Augustodunensis

#86. And the first step, as you know, is always what matters most, particularly when we are dealing with those who are young and tender. That is the time when they are taking shape and when any impression we choose to make leaves a permanent mark.

Plato

#87. There are few people so stubborn in their atheism who, when danger is pressing in, will not acknowledge the divine power.

Plato

#88. No man will survive who genuinely opposes you or any other crowd and prevents the occurrence of many unjust and illegal happenings in the city. A man who really fights for justice must lead a private, not a public, life if he is to survive for even a short time

Plato

#89. The one who learns and learns and doesn't practice is like the one who plows and plows and never plants.

Plato

#90. If you think that a man who is any good at all should take into account the risk of life or death; he should look to this only in his action, whether what he does is right or wrong, whether he is acting life a good or a bad man.

Plato

#91. No one is a friend to his friend who does not love in return.

Plato

#92. A true artist is someone who gives birth to a new reality.

Plato

#93. He who can properly define and divide is to be considered a god.

Plato

#94. There is nothing so delightful as the hearing, or the speaking of truth. For this reason, there is no conversation so agreeable as that of the man of integrity, who hears without any intention to betray, and speaks without any intention to deceive.

Plato

#95. Not only is the old man twice a child, but also the man who is drunk.

Plato

#96. Others in the ancient world who denounced usury include Plato, Moses, Muhammad, Aristotle and Buddha. When a line-up like that is in agreement, it is perhaps worth thinking twice about our acceptance of it.

J.M.R. Higgs

#97. Whenever someone, on seeing something, realizes that that which he now sees wants to be like some other reality but falls short and cannot be like that other since it is inferior, do we agree that one who thinks this must have prior knowledge of that to which he says it is like, but deficiently so?

Plato

#98. There is in every one of us, even those who seem to be most moderate, a type of desire that is terrible, wild, and lawless.

Plato

#99. Wordsworth's particular grace, his charisma, as theologians say, has been granted in equal measure to so very few men since time was
to Plato and who else?
The crucial thing is never what we do, but always what we do right after that. What matters is always the next step!

Robert Musil

#100. Worthy of honor is he who does no injustice, and more than twofold honor, if he not only does no injustice himself, but hinders others from doing any.

Plato