Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress, no matter how slow... even if that someone is yourself!
PlatoRead
Entire ignorance is not so terrible or extreme an evil, and is far from being the greatest of all.
Interpretation
Complete ignorance isn't the worst thing; there are worse states of being.
Plato suggests that while ignorance is often viewed negatively, it shouldn't be seen as the worst possible condition. There are more severe existential challenges and states of being than simply not knowing something, highlighting that ignorance can sometimes be a less serious affliction compared to pain, suffering, or moral failures.
In practice
In a discussion on what makes life meaningful, one could use this quote to illustrate that there are worse things than not knowing.
Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress, no matter how slow... even if that someone is yourself!
Not one of them who took up in his youth with this opinion that there are no gods ever continued until old age faithful to his conviction.
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A brain scan may reveal the neural signs of anxiety, but a Kokoschka painting, or a Schiele self-portrait, reveals what an anxiety state really feels like. Both perspectives are necessary if we are to fully grasp the nature of the mind, yet they are rarely brought together.
Society's mores have changed, and what used to be thought not to be cruel and unusual now is thought to be cruel and unusual.
I pity the man who wants a coat so cheap that the man or woman who produces the cloth will starve in the process.
Nothing becomes so offensive so quickly as grief. When fresh it finds someone to console it, but when it becomes chronic, it is ridiculed and rightly.
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