Quotes by Plato

The society we have described can never grow into a reality or see the light of day, and there will be no end to the troubles of states, or indeed, my dear Glaucon, of humanity itself, till philosophers become rulers in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands.” ― Plato, Platos Republic

The poet is a light and winged and holy thing, and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his sneses, and the mind is no longer in him.

Excess of liberty, whether it lies in state or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery.

Is it not true that the clever rogue is like the runner who runs well for the first half of the course, but flags before reaching the goal: he is quick off the mark, but ends in disgrace and slinks away crestfallen and uncrowned. The crown is the prize of the really good runner who perseveres to the end.

The tools that would teach men their own use would be beyond price.

Heres something else Id like your opinion about, I said. If he went back underground and sat down again in the same spot, wouldnt the sudden transition from the sunlight mean that his eyes would be overwhelmed by darkness? Certainly, he replied. Now, the process of adjustment would be quite long this time, and suppose that before his eyes had settled down and while he wasnt seeing well, he had once again to compete against those same old prisoners at identifying those shadows. Would he make a fool of himself? Wouldnt they say that hed come back from his upward journey with his eyes ruined, and that it wasnt even worth trying to go up there? And would they -- if they could -- grab hold of anyone who tried to set them free and take them up there and kill him?

Time is the moving image of eternity.

Laws are partly formed for the sake of good men, in order to instruct them how they may live on friendly terms with one another, and partly for the sake of those who refuse to be instructed, whose spirit cannot be subdued, or softened, or hindered from plunging into evil.

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.

If it were necessary either to do wrong or to suffer it, I should choose to suffer rather than do it.

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?

Every king springs from a race of slaves, and every slave had kings among his ancestors.

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.

Always be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle.

I shall try to persuade first the Rulers and soldiers, and then the rest of the community, that the upbringing and education we have given them was all something that happened to them only in a dream. In reality they were fashioned and reared, and their arms and equipment manufactured, in the depths of the earth, and Earth herself, their mother, brought them up, when they were complete, into the light of day; so now they must think of the land in which they live as their mother and protect her if she is attacked, while their fellow citizens they must regard as brothers born of the same mother earth…. That is the story. Do you know of any way of making them believe it?” “Not in the first generation,” he said, “but you might succeed with the second, and later generations.

I know that I know nothing

I am smart because I know I nothing.

Its like this, I think: the excellence of a good body doesnt make the soul good, but the other way around: the excellence of a good soul makes the body as good as it can be.

a life without investigation is not worth living

virtue does not spring from riches, but riches and all other human blessings, both private and public, from virtue.