plato

Plato quotes

Greek author and philosopher in Athens (427 BC – 347 BC)

  • “The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”
  • “Only the dead have seen the end of war.”
  • “Those who tell the stories rule society.”
  • “Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.”
  • “When men speak ill of thee, live so that nobody will believe them.”
  • “Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.”
  • “Education is teaching our children to desire the right things.”
  • “Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand.”
  • “Death is not the worst that can happen to men.”
  • “They certainly give very strange names to diseases”
  • “Character is simply habit long continued.”
  • “Love is the pursuit of the whole.”
  • “The beginning is the most important part of the work.” — The Republic
  • “Books are immortal sons defying their sires.”
  • “Light is the shadow of god.”
  • “Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable.”
  • “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.”
  • “You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.”
  • “Thinking is the talking of the soul with itself.”
  • “Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything”
  • “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.”
  • “You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.”
  • “Love is a serious mental disease.” — Phaedrus
  • “Ignorance, the root and the stem of every evil.”
  • “The madness of love is the greatest of heaven’s blessings.”
  • “I’m trying to think, don’t confuse me with facts.”
  • “Mankind censure injustice fearing that they may be the victims of it, and not because they shrink from committing it.” — The Republic
  • “good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.”
  • “If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.”— The Republic
  • “Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others.”
  • “Any man may easily do harm, but not every man can do good to another.”
  • “The partisan, when he is engaged in a dispute, cares nothing about the rights of the question, but is anxious only to convince his hearers of his own assertions.” — Dialogues, Phaedo
  • “The greatest wealth is to live content with little.”
  • “There is no such thing as a lover’s oath.”
  • “No wealth can ever make a bad man at peace with himself.”
  • “Everything that deceives may be said to enchant.” — The Republic
  • “The greatest penalty of evildoing – namely, to grow into the likeness of bad men.” — Dialogues, Theatetus
  • “Philosophy is the highest music.”
  • “Man is a being in search of meaning.”
  • “Love is simply the name for the desire and pursuit of the whole.” — The Symposium
  • “Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity.”
  • “Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another.” — The Republic
  • “Honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty.”
  • “No human thing is of serious importance.”
  • “The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future life.”
  • “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle”