Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress, no matter how slow... even if that someone is yourself!
PlatoRead
Is it not the excess and greed of this and the neglect of all other things that revolutionizes this constitution too and prepares the way for the necessity of a dictatorship?
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote warns about the dangers of greed and excess, suggesting that they might lead society to require a dictatorship for order.
In this quote, Plato reflects on how the overindulgence and avarice of individuals can disrupt the fabric of society, resulting in political upheaval. He cautions that such extremes create conditions where a dictatorial regime might emerge as a means of restoring control and stability, underscoring the importance of balance and moderation in both personal and societal conduct.
Themes
GreedExcessDictatorshipSocietyBalancePower
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion on the impact of consumerism on democracy.
More from Plato
All quotes →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.
PlatoRead
...for the object of education is to teach us to love beauty.
PlatoRead
Pleasure is the greatest incentive to evil.
PlatoRead
Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety.
PlatoRead
Let parents bequeath to their children not riches, but the spirit of reverence.
PlatoRead
Similar quotes
I don't think any of us can speak frankly about pain until we are no longer enduring it.
Arthur GoldenRead
I'd been taught from an early age that I was in the 'other' category on the standardized tests. You know, I had to go down the checklist - Caucasian, African-American, Latino, Asian-Pacific Islander, and then, you know, at the bottom is other. So, you know, very early on I was taught, in a way, that I was somehow this anomaly.
Jordan PeeleRead
... reality stands before them, yet they don't see it, because what you call real is just the mirror image of your expectations.
Deepak ChopraRead
In our rather stupid time, hunting is belittled and misunderstood, many refusing to see it for the vital vacation from the human condition that it is, or to acknowledge that the hunter does not hunt in order to kill; on the contrary, he kills in order to have hunted.
Jose Ortega Y GassetRead
I have no illusions concerning the precarious status of my tales and do not expect to become a serious competitor of my favorite weird authors.
H. P. LovecraftRead
It is prima facie highly implausible that life as we know it is the result of a sequence of physical accidents together with the mechanism of natural selection. We are supposed to abandon this naïve response, not in favor of a fully worked out physical/chemical explanation but in favor of an alternative that is really a schema for explanation, supported by some examples. What is lacking, to my knowledge, is a credible argument that the story has a nonnegligible probability of being true.
Thomas NagelRead