In those days, when people were not wise like you young people, they were content to listen to a tree or a rock in simple openness, just as long as it spoke the truth, but to you, perhaps, it makes a difference who is speaking and where he comes from.

τοῖς μὲν οὖν τότε, ἅτε οὐκ οὖσι σοφοῖς ὥσπερ ὑμεῖς οἱ νέοι, ἀπέχρη δρυὸς καὶ πέτρας ἀκούειν ὑπ᾽ εὐηθείας, εἰ μόνον ἀληθῆ λέγοιεν: σοὶ δ᾽ ἴσως διαφέρει τίς ὁ λέγων καὶ ποδαπός.

Original text (Ancient Greek)

Another quote →

Notes from Wikiquote

275b-c, as translated by Joe Sachs in introduction to Aristotle's Physics: A Guided Study (2011), p. 1

More quotes by Plato

All Plato quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Plato (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.