Plato Quotes Page 5

“The society we have described can never grow into a reality or see the light of day, and there will be no end to the troubles of states, or indeed, my dear Glaucon, of humanity itself, till philosophers become rulers 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.”

“The soul takes nothing with her to the next world but her education and her culture. At the beginning of the journey to the next world, one's education and culture can either provide the greatest assistance, or else act as the greatest burden, to the person who has just died.”

“The worst type of man behaves as badly in his waking life as some men do in their dreams.”

“There is in every one of us, even those who seem to be most moderate, a type of desire that is terrible, wild, and lawless.”

“Those who don't know must learn from those who do.”

“Those who govern ought not to be lovers of the task? For, if they are, there will be rival lovers, and they will fight.”

“Those who reproach injustice do so because they are afraid not of doing it but of suffering it.”

“We've heard many people say and have often said ourselves that justice is doing one's own work and not meddling with what isn't one's own. Then, it turns out that this doing one's own work – provided that it comes to be in a certain way – is justice.”

“Wealth, and poverty; one is the parent of luxury and indolence, and the other of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent.”

“According to Greek mythology, humans were originally created with four arms, four legs and a head with two faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves.”

“Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.”

“For harmony is a symphony, and symphony is an agreement; but an agreement of disagreements while they disagree there cannot be; you cannot harmonize that which disagrees.”

“He whom loves touches not walks in darkness.”

“It is no good for rulers if the people they rule cherish ambitions for themselves or form strong bonds of friendship with one another.”

“Love is born into every human being; it calls back the halves of our original nature together; it tries to make one out of two and heal the wound of human nature.”

“Love is of something, and that which love desires is not that which love is or has; for no man desires that which he is or has. And love is of the beautiful, and therefore has not the beautiful. And the beautiful is the good, and therefore, in wanting and desiring the beautiful, love also wants and desires the good.”

“Love is simply the name for the desire and pursuit of the whole.”

“The creative soul creates not children, but conceptions of wisdom and virtue.”

“The vulgar love of the body which takes wing and flies away when the bloom of youth is over, is disgraceful, and so is the interested love of power or wealth; but the love of the noble mind is lasting.”