Plato quotes

A nation will prosper to the degree that it honors it's teachers.

I have good hope that there is something after death.

One cannot make a slave of a free person, for a free person is free even in a prison.

When you feel grateful, you become great, and eventually attract great things.

Better to be unborn than untaught, for ignorance is the root of all misfortune.

No one ever dies an atheist.

Music has the capacity to touch the innermost reaches of the soul and music gives flight to the imagination.

Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress, no matter how slow... even if that someone is yourself!

Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.

The right question is usually more important than the right answer.

The life which is not examined is not worth living.

Reality is created by the mind, we can change our reality by changing our mind.

Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety.

Don't force your children into your ways, for they were created for a time different from your own.

Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.

Only those who do not seek power are qualified to hold it.

Do not expect justice where might is right.

Where love reigns, there's no need for laws.

The first and the best victory is to conquer self.

All wars are fought for the sake of getting money.

The noblest of all studies is the study of what man is and of what life he should live.

Better a little which is well done, than a great deal imperfectly.

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

If one has made a mistake, and fails to correct it, one has made a greater mistake.

Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.

A tyrant... is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.

The beginning is half of the whole.

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.

Do not train children to learning by force and harshness, but direct them to it by what amuses their minds.

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

Just as bees make honey from thyme, the strongest and driest of herbs, so do the wise profit from the most difficult of experiences.

Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.

Welcome out of the cave, my friend. It's a bit colder out here, but the stars are just beautiful.

The true lover of knowledge naturally strives for truth, and is not content with common opinion, but soars with undimmed and unwearied passion till he grasps the essential nature of things.

Seek truth while you are young, for if you do not, it will later escape your grasp

A grateful mind is a great mind which eventually attracts to itself great things.

Lack of activity destroys the good condition of every human being

If the head and the body are to be well, you must begin by curing the soul.

If you do not take an interest in the affairs of your government, then you are doomed to live under the rule of fools.

The wolf cares not, how many the sheep be.

The worst form of injustice is pretended justice.

Poverty doesn't come because of the decrease of wealth but because of the increase of desires.

Pleasure is the greatest incentive to evil.

Aspiring minds must sometimes sustain loss.

God is truth and light his shadow.

You ought not to heal the body without the soul, for this is the great error of our day in treating the human body.

A good decision is based on knowledge, and not on numbers.

Music is to the mind as air is to the body.

The qualities which a man seeks in his beloved are those characteristics of his own soul, whether he knows it or not.

Be kind. Every person you meet is fighting a difficult battle.

The greatest privilege of a human life is to become a midwife to the awakening of the Soul in another person.

Follow your dream as long as you live, do not lessen the time of following desire, for wasting time is an abomination of the spirit.

Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.

The community which has neither poverty nor riches will always have the noblest principles.

Education is teaching our children to desire the right things.

People are like dirt. They can either nourish you and help you grow as a person or they can stunt your growth and make you wilt and die.

Nothing ever is, everything is becoming.

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.

Happiness springs from doing good and helping others.

People too smart to get involved in politics are doomed to live in societies run by people who aren't.

The souls of people, on their way to Earth-life, pass through a room full of lights; each takes a taper - often only a spark - to guide it in the dim country of this world. But some souls, by rare fortune, are detained longer - have time to grasp a handful of tapers, which they weave into a torch. These are the torch-bearers of humanity - its poets, seers and saints, who lead and lift the race out of darkness, toward the light. They are the law-givers and saviors, the light-bringers, way-showers and truth-tellers, and without them, humanity would lose its way in the dark.

The worst of all deceptions is self-deception.

The philosopher is in love with truth, that is, not with the changing world of sensation, which is the object of opinion, but with the unchanging reality which is the object of knowledge.

Courage is knowing what to fear.

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.

You get to know someone better by playing for an hour than by talking for a year.

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

Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.

You can't do good if you don't feel good.

For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories.

Ignorance is the root cause of all difficulties.

Life should be lived as play.

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

I'm trying to think, don't confuse me with facts.

Love is a serious mental disease.

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

Self conquest is the greatest of victories.

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

All learning is in the learner, not the teacher.

Everything changes and nothing remains still.

I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.

The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things.

The cause of all sins in every case lies in the person's excessive love of self.

To begin is the most important part of any quest and by far the most courageous.

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.

The real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.

Can any man be courageous who has the fear of death in him?

The measure of a man is what he does with power.

There is far greater peril in buying knowledge than in buying meat and drink.

Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back.

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

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.

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

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.

Don't quarrel with your parents even if you are on the right.

The greatest mistake physicians make is that they attempt to cure the body without attempting to cure the mind, yet the mind and the body are one and should not be treated separately!

Those who tell the stories rule society.

False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.

The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.

To be at once exceedingly wealthy and good is impossible.

We understand why children are afraid of darkness ... but why are men afraid of light?

There should exist among the citizens neither extreme poverty nor again excessive wealth, for both are productive of great evil.

When man is not properly trained, he is the most savage animal on the face of the globe.

Honesty is for the most par less profitable than dishonesty.

Enjoy life. There's plenty of time to be dead. Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.

The essence of knowledge is self-knowledge.

Thinking is the soul talking to itself.

Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood let alone believed by the masses.

Excellence" is not a gift, but a skill that takes practice. We do not act "rightly" because we are "excellent", in fact we achieve "excellence" by acting "rightly".

Wisest is he who knows what he does not know.

Better to complete a small task well, than to do much imperfectly.

We become what we contemplate.

The greatest wealth is to live content with little.

Maximize the power of the beliefs that strengthen you and neutralize those that weaken you.

A wise ignorance is an essential part of knowledge.

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

If we are to have any hope for the future, those who have lanterns must pass them on to others.

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.

Justice means minding one's own business and not meddling with other men's concerns.

You should not honor men more than truth.

A wise man speaks because he has something to say; a fool because he has to say something.

I do not live to play, but I play in order that I may live, and return with greater zest to the labors of life.

Sin is disease, deformity, and weakness.

The seen is the changing, the unseen is the unchanging.

Better a good enemy than a bad friend.