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Plato quotes

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“I replied: There is nothing which for my part I like better, Cephalus, than conversing with aged men; for I regard them as travellers who have gone a journey which I too may have to go, and of whom I ought to enquire, whether the way is smooth...” Plato, The Republic
“Then justice will be useful when money is useless.” Plato, The Republic
“For mankind censure injustice, fearing that they may be the victims of it and not because they shrink from committing it.” Plato, The Republic
“false words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.” Plato, Phaedo
“Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.” Plato, The Republic
“The excess of liberty, whether in States or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery.” Plato, The Republic
“It would seem, Adeimantus, that the direction in which education starts a man, will determine his future life.” Plato, The Republic
“And so tyranny naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme form of liberty?” Plato, The Republic
“And when one of them meets with his other half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and one will not be out of the other's...” Plato, Symposium
“But when he has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.” Plato, The Republic
“No tools will make a man a skilled workman, or master of defence, nor be of any use to him who has not learned how to handle them, and has never bestowed any attention upon them.” Plato, The Republic
“This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears above ground he is a protector.” Plato, The Republic
“courage is a kind of salvation.” Plato, The Republic
“Evil is the vulgar lover who loves the body rather than the soul” Plato, Symposium
“Then we may begin by assuming that there are three classes of men—lovers of wisdom, lovers of honour, lovers of gain?” Plato, The Republic
“I have hardly ever known a mathematician who could reason.” Plato, The Republic
“love is the desire of the whole” Plato, Symposium
“Wealth, I said, and poverty; the one is the parent of luxury and indolence, and the other of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent.” Plato, The Republic
“The gods are not magicians who transform themselves, neither do they deceive mankind in any way.” Plato, The Republic
“A State, I said, arises, as I conceive, out of the needs of mankind; no one is self-sufficing, but all of us have many wants.” Plato, The Republic
“the States are as the men are; they grow out of human characters.” Plato, The Republic
“the tools which would teach men their own use would be beyond price.” Plato, The Republic
“Then beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity,—I mean the true simplicity of a rightly and nobly ordered mind and character, not that other simplicity which is only an euphemism for folly?” Plato, The Republic
“For every one, as I think, must see that astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another.” Plato, The Republic
“Then, my good friend, I said, do not use compulsion, but let early education be a sort of amusement; you will then be better able to find out the natural bent.” Plato, The Republic
“True, he said; how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?” Plato, The Republic
“he who refuses to rule is liable to be ruled by one who is worse than himself.” Plato, The Republic
“That the knowledge at which geometry aims is knowledge of the eternal, and not of aught perishing and transient.” Plato, The Republic
“For a fit of laughter which has been indulged to excess almost always produces a violent reaction.” Plato, The Republic
“the true votaries of philosophy abstain from all fleshly lusts, and hold out against them and refuse to give themselves up to them” Plato, Phaedo

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slavery education love life compulsion mind freedom wisdom reason learning state knowledge money teaching men liberty body mankind character tool

Related sources

The Republic (25)
Symposium (3)
Phaedo (2)