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Plato Quotes
427 BC–347 BC Greece
Plato (Πλάτων Plátōn; c. 427 BC – c. 347 BC) was a Greek philosopher from Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece, founder of the Platonist school of thought and the Academy (Akademia), the first institution of higher learning in the Western world.
Greece Philosophers Physicists Poets Also known as: Phaedrus (dialogue), Platonic, Platonists
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105 quotes
It would be a hard task to discover the maker and father of this universe of ours, and even if we did find him, it would be impossible to speak of him to everyone.
But when I describe something and you describe another thing, or I say something and you say nothing - Is there any contradiction? How can he who speaks contradict him who speaks not.
The wisdom which knows what are and are not dangers is opposed to the ignorance of them
No multitude is able to acquire any art whatsoever. Then if there is a kingly art, neither the collective body of the wealthy nor the whole people could ever acquire this science of statesmanship.
Are you not ashamed that you give your attention to acquiring as much money as possible, and similarly with reputation and honor, and give no attention or thought to truth and understanding and the perfection of your soul?
Kissing Agathon, I held my life on my lips.
...the madness of love is the greatest of heaven's blessings...
Moreover, there is a victory and defeat—the first and best of victories, the lowest and worst of defeats—which each man gains or sustains at the hands, not of another, but of himself; this shows that there is a war against ourselves going on within every one of us.
There have been, and will be again, many destructions of mankind arising out of many causes; the greatest have been brought about by the agencies of fire and water, and other lesser ones by innumerable other causes.
The Graces sought some holy ground,
It would be better for me … that multitudes of men should disagree with me rather than that I, being one, should be out of harmony with myself.
For once touched by love, everyone becomes a poet
No man of sense can put himself and his soul under the control of names... You must consider courageously and thoroughly and not accept anything carelessly.
Pleasure, a most mighty lure to evil.
May I consider the wise man rich.
The inexperienced in wisdom and virtue, ever occupied with feasting and such, are carried downward, and there, as is fitting, they wander their whole life long, neither ever looking upward to the truth above them nor rising toward it, nor tasting pure and lasting pleasures. Like cattle, always looking downward with their heads bent toward the ground and the banquet tables, they feed, fatten, and fornicate. In order to increase their possessions they kick and butt with horns and hoofs of steel and kill each other, insatiable as they are.
Thou my star at the stars are gazing
A charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequaled alike.
This world is indeed a living being endowed with a soul and intelligence … a single visible living entity containing all other living entities, which by their nature are all related.
Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity—I mean the true simplicity of a rightly and nobly ordered mind and character, not that other simplicity which is only a euphemism for folly.
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