Occupation: Philosopher Birth: 428 Bc Death: 348 Bc
The orators and the despots have the least power in their cities ... since they do nothing that they wish to do, practically speaking, though they do….
So their combinations with themselves and with each other give rise to endless complexities, which anyone who is to give a likely account of reality ….
For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories..
When a Benefit is wrongly conferred, the author of the Benefit may often be said to injure..
The poets are nothing but interpreters of the gods, each one possessed by the divinity to whom he is in bondage..
Even in reaching for the beautiful there is beauty, and also in suffering whatever it is that one suffers en route..
For good nurture and education implant good constitutions..
All I would ask you to be thinking of is the truth and not Socrates..
Conversion is not implanting eyes, for they exist already; but giving them a right direction, which they have not.
For a poet is an airy thing, winged and holy, and he is not able to make poetry until he becomes inspired and goes out of his mind and his intellect ….
By the golden chain Homer meant nothing else than the sun..
The God of Love lives in a state of need..
Some thoughtlessly proclaim the Muses nine: A tenth is Sappho, maid divine..
Many are the noble words in which poets speak concerning the actions of men; but like yourself when speaking about Homer, they do not speak of them b….
But that we shall be better and braver and less helpless if we think that we ought to enquire, than we should have been if we indulged in the idle fa….
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 f….
What essence is to generation, that truth is to belief..
for a poet is a light and winged thing, and holy, and never able to compose until he has become inspired, and is beside himself, and reason is no lon….
The like is not the friend of the like in as far as he is like; still the good may be the friend of the good in as far as he is good..
Life must be lived as play, playing certain games, making sacrifices, singing and dancing, and then a man will be able to propitiate the gods..
Wonder [said Socrates] is very much the affection of a philosopher; for there is no other beginning of philosophy than this..