Quotes By Plato

Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men.

Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy.

Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.

The beginning is the most important part of the work.

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

I shall assume that your silence gives consent.

There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain.

Excess of liberty, whether it lies in state or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery.

Not to help justice in her need would be an impiety.

There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands.

Those who intend on becoming great should love neither themselves nor their own things, but only what is just, whether it happens to be done by themselves or others.

There is no such thing as a lovers' oath.

Thinking: the talking of the soul with itself.

Man - a being in search of meaning.

Then not only custom, but also nature affirms that to do is more disgraceful than to suffer injustice, and that justice is equality.

Man never legislates, but destinies and accidents, happening in all sorts of ways, legislate in all sorts of ways.

Philosophy begins in wonder.

If particulars are to have meaning, there must be universals.

The wisest have the most authority.

The most important part of education is proper training in the nursery.

Democracy passes into despotism.

A hero is born among a hundred, a wise man is found among a thousand, but an accomplished one might not be found even among a hundred thousand men.

Excess generally causes reaction, and produces a change in the opposite direction, whether it be in the seasons, or in individuals, or in governments.

A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers.

Any man may easily do harm, but not every man can do good to another.

States are as the men, they grow out of human characters.

Twice and thrice over, as they say, good is it to repeat and review what is good.

The community which has neither poverty nor riches will always have the noblest principles.

The gods' service is tolerable, man's intolerable.

Injustice is censured because the censures are afraid of suffering, and not from any fear which they have of doing injustice.