Quotes By Plato

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.

When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing more to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.

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

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

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

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

Ignorance of all things is an evil neither terrible nor excessive, nor yet the greatest of all; but great cleverness and much learning, if they be accompanied by a bad training, are a much greater misfortune.

Love is the joy of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the Gods.

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

He who steals a little steals with the same wish as he who steals much, but with less power.

No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.

Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others.

Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another.

Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous.

Democracy... is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder; and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.

We do not learn; and what we call learning is only a process of recollection.

Philosophy is the highest music.

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

Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.

Knowledge without justice ought to be called cunning rather than wisdom.

Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand.

The good is the beautiful.

At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.

Entire ignorance is not so terrible or extreme an evil, and is far from being the greatest of all; too much cleverness and too much learning, accompanied with ill bringing-up, are far more fatal.

One man cannot practice many arts with success.

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

People are like dirt. They can either nourish you and help you grow as a person or they can stunt your growth and make you wilt and die.

Let parents bequeath to their children not riches, but the spirit of reverence.

How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state?