Quotes on Plato

Honesty is for the most par less profitable than dishonesty.

Our tradition of political thought had its definite beginning in the teachings of Plato and Aristotle. I believe it came to a no less definite end in the theories of Karl Marx.

No intelligent man will ever be so bold as to put into language those things which his reason has contemplated.

In particular I may mention Sophocles the poet, who was once asked in my presence, How do you feel about love, Sophocles? are you still capable of it? to which he replied, Hush! if you please: to my great delight I have escaped from it, and feel as if I had escaped from a frantic and savage master. I thought then, as I do now, that he spoke wisely. For unquestionably old age brings us profound repose and freedom from this and other passions.

Certain characteristics of the subject are clear. To begin with, we do not in this subject deal with particular things or particular properties: we deal formally with what can be said about any thing or any property. We are prepared to say that one and one are two, but not that Socrates and Plato are two.

Must not all things at the last be swallowed up in death?

When I left home after graduating high school, I left as a migrant agricultural worker with a Modern Library edition of Plato in my duffel bag. It sounds kind of crazy, but I loved it. I loved the stuff. Before I knew there was a subject called philosophy, I loved it.

Church practice has been more influenced by Plato than by Jesus. We invariably prefer the universal synthesis, the answer that settles all the dust and resolves every question even when it is not entirely true over the mercy and grace of God.

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

Philosophy is the highest music.

The tools which would teach men their own use would be beyond price.

If I were again beginning my studies, I would follow the advice of Plato and start with mathematics.

It must be so,-Plato, thou reasonest well! Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, This longing after immortality? Or whence this secret dread and inward horror Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul Back on herself, and startles at destruction? 'T is the divinity that stirs within us; 'T is Heaven itself that points out an hereafter, And intimates eternity to man. Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought!

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.

Out of Plato come all things that are still written and debated about among men of thought.

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

Mankind censure injustice fearing that they may be the victims of it, and not because they shrink from committing it.

Only the dead have seen the end of war.

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

The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.

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