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Home: Plato Quotes

Plato Quotes

Philosopher
Born On
0428-00-00
Died On
0348-00-00
Birth Place
Classical Athens
Death Place
Athens
Father
Ariston, Ariston of Athens
Mother
Perictione
Nationality
Greek
Philosophers, Intellectuals & Academics

Most people would have heard the term, "platonic love", which simply put means 'non-sexual love'. It wasn't really a term coined by the Greek philosopher Plato. In fact, it was this thinker's masterpiece 'Symposium' that inspired Marsilio Ficino, an Italian scholar to come up with the jargon, "amor platonicus". 'Symposium' shows Plato's teacher Socrates describe the transcendence of a mere basal feeling such as desire for a beautiful body to the love of beauty in general.

Ficino, also a Catholic priest, took Socrates' definition of love a notch higher by relating it to devotion towards God. He equated this love with divine attachment, saying, "The passion of a lover is not quenched by the mere touch or sight of a body, for it does not desire this or that body, but desires the splendor of the divine light shining through bodies, and is amazed and awed by it."

Subsequently the locution "amor platonicus" became a fad and women proudly began donning the role of 'the beloved who incites spiritual desire'. The same expression was adopted into written English not before the 1630s, when Neoplatonism became the new trend. While some swore heavily by the phraseology, others endeavored to expose it as pretentious. William Davenant, for instance, wrote a play, 'Platonick Love' which approached the entire concept as if it was ostentatious. Well, hate it or like it, we just can't ignore ‘platonic love’, and it's all because of Plato.

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

Conduct Desire Knowledge
Plato

There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help, and what they cannot.

Anger Things
Plato

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.

Life Fear Light
Plato

The beginning is the most important part of the work.

Work
Plato

A hero is born among a hundred, a wise man is found among a thousand, but an accomplished one might not be found even among a hundred thousand men.

Wisdom
Plato

He who is not a good servant will not be a good master.

Good
Plato

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.

Life Music Soul Mind
Plato

Thinking: the talking of the soul with itself.

Inspiration Soul Talking Thinking
Plato

Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.

Communication Wisdom
Plato

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

Politics
Plato

If a man neglects education, he walks lame to the end of his life.

Life Education
Plato

Courage is knowing what not to fear.

Courage Fear
Plato

To prefer evil to good is not in human nature; and when a man is compelled to choose one of two evils, no one will choose the greater when he might have the less.

Good Nature Wickedness
Plato

There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain.

Wisdom Honor
Plato

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

Democracy Autocracy Liberty
Plato

The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile.

Greatness Victory
Plato

At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.

Love
Plato

Science is nothing but perception.

Nothing Perception Science
Plato

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

Good People
Plato

The learning and knowledge that we have, is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant.

Knowledge Learning
Plato

All men are by nature equal, made all of the same earth by one Workman; and however we deceive ourselves, as dear unto God is the poor peasant as the mighty prince.

Nature Earth
Plato

Apply yourself both now and in the next life. Without effort, you cannot be prosperous. Though the land be good, You cannot have an abundant crop without cultivation.

Good Life Effort
Plato

There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings 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.

Power World Humanity
Plato

Democracy... is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder; and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.

Democracy Equality Government
Plato

To love rightly is to love what is orderly and beautiful in an educated and disciplined way.

Love
Plato

Love is a serious mental disease.

Love Disease
Plato

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

Knowledge Mind
Plato

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

Power
Plato

When the mind is thinking it is talking to itself.

Talking Thinking Mind
Plato

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

Plato

Death is not the worst that can happen to men.

Death
Plato

Attention to health is life's greatest hindrance.

Life Health
Plato

No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.

Death Good Life
Plato

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

Good Decision Knowledge
Plato

Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.

Heart
Plato

Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil.

Wickedness
Plato

When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing more to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.

People Wars Fear
Plato

The greatest wealth is to live content with little.

Greatness Wealth
Plato

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.

People Growth
Plato

Justice in the life and conduct of the State is possible only as first it resides in the hearts and souls of the citizens.

Life Justice
Plato

Knowledge without justice ought to be called cunning rather than wisdom.

Wisdom Justice Knowledge
Plato

Democracy passes into despotism.

Democracy Government
Plato

This City is what it is because our citizens are what they are.

Plato

Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.

Opinion Knowledge
Plato

When men speak ill of thee, live so as nobody may believe them.

Plato

When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income.

Plato

We are twice armed if we fight with faith.

Faith
Plato

No law or ordinance is mightier than understanding.

Understanding Law
Plato

Nothing can be more absurd than the practice that prevails in our country of men and women not following the same pursuits with all their strengths and with one mind, for thus, the state instead of being whole is reduced to half.

Country Women Mind
Plato

Man - a being in search of meaning.

Plato

Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another.

Soul World
Plato

The man who makes everything that leads to happiness depends upon himself, and not upon other men, has adopted the very best plan for living happily. This is the man of moderation, the man of manly character and of wisdom.

Character Wisdom Happiness
Plato

Let parents bequeath to their children not riches, but the spirit of reverence.

Spirit Parents
Plato

They certainly give very strange names to diseases.

Plato

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

Greatness Anxiety Nothing
Plato

The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future in life.

Life Education Future
Plato

The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the government of worse men.

Penalty / Chastisement Wisdom Government
Plato

Life must be lived as play.

Life Play
Plato

He who is of calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden.

Age Nature Youth
Plato

Love is the joy of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the Gods.

Good Love Wisdom Excitement
Plato

He who commits injustice is ever made more wretched than he who suffers it.

Plato

Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.

Poetry Truth History
Plato

Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue.

Music Soul Education Virtues
Plato

Courage is a kind of salvation.

Courage
Plato

To be sure I must; and therefore I may assume that your silence gives consent.

Silence
Plato

This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.

Plato

Wonder is the feeling of the philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.

Philosophy Wonder Feelings
Plato

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

Business Justice
Plato

The god of love lives in a state of need. It is a need. It is an urge. It is a homeostatic imbalance. Like hunger and thirst, it's almost impossible to stamp out.

Love
Plato

Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men.

Art
Plato

The curse of me and my nation is that we always think things can be bettered by immediate action of some sort, any sort rather than no sort.

Nation
Plato

The most virtuous are those who content themselves with being virtuous without seeking to appear so.

Plato

How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state?

Dreams
Plato

The most important part of education is proper training in the nursery.

Education Training
Plato

Honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty.

Integrity
Plato

Necessity... the mother of invention.

Necessity
Plato

All the gold which is under or upon the earth is not enough to give in exchange for virtue.

Earth Virtues Gold
Plato

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

Greatness
Plato

It is right to give every man his due.

Right
Plato

Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy.

Democracy
Plato

And what, Socrates, is the food of the soul? Surely, I said, knowledge is the food of the soul.

Soul Food Knowledge
Plato

I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.

Work
Plato

Ignorance of all things is an evil neither terrible nor excessive, nor yet the greatest of all; but great cleverness and much learning, if they be accompanied by a bad training, are a much greater misfortune.

Greatness Wickedness Learning
Plato

No man should bring children into the world who is unwilling to persevere to the end in their nature and education.

Nature Education World
Plato

Cunning... is but the low mimic of wisdom.

Wisdom
Plato

Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous.

Wickedness Knowledge
Plato

Philosophy begins in wonder.

Philosophy Wonder
Plato

There is no harm in repeating a good thing.

Good
Plato

The eyes of the soul of the multitudes are unable to endure the vision of the divine.

Soul Eyes Vision
Plato

We do not learn; and what we call learning is only a process of recollection.

Learning
Plato

Excess generally causes reaction, and produces a change in the opposite direction, whether it be in the seasons, or in individuals, or in governments.

Change Seasons
Plato

The excessive increase of anything causes a reaction in the opposite direction.

Plato

The good is the beautiful.

Good
Plato

We ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him is to become holy, just, and wise.

Wisdom Heaven
Plato

Any man may easily do harm, but not every man can do good to another.

Good
Plato

There's 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.

Victory
Plato

No one knows whether death, which people fear to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good.

Death Good People Fear
Plato

If particulars are to have meaning, there must be universals.

Plato

The blame is his who chooses: God is blameless.

Blame
Plato

To suffer the penalty of too much haste, which is too little speed.

Hurry
Plato

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