Plato Quotes

“Appearance tyrannizes over truth.”

“Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.”

“Come then, and let us pass a leisure hour in storytelling, and our story shall be the education of our heroes.”

“Do you mean that the tyrant will dare to use violence against the people who fathered him, and raise his hand against them if they oppose him? So the tyrant is a parricide, and little comfort to his old parent.”

“Each individual can only do one thing well. He can't do lots of things. If he tries, he will be jack of all trades, and master of none.”

“Educators should devise the simplest and most effective methods of turning minds around. It shouldn't be the art of implanting sight in the organ, but should proceed on the understanding that the organ already has the capacity, but is improperly aligned and isn't facing the right way.”

“Either we shall find what it is we are seeking or at least we shall free ourselves from the persuasion that we know what we do not know.”

“Every dictator comes up with the notorious and typical demand: he asks the people for bodyguards to protect him, the people's champion.”

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

“Have you ever sensed that our soul is immortal and never dies?”

“Haven't you noticed that opinion without knowledge is always a poor thing? At the best it is blind – isn't anyone who holds a true opinion without understanding like a blind man on the right road?”

“He who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age. But to him who is of an opposite disposition, youth and age are equally a burden.”

“I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.”

“I say that justice is nothing other than the advantage of the stronger.”

“If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.”

“In practice people who study philosophy too long become very odd birds, not to say thoroughly vicious; while even those who are the best of them are reduced by philosophy to complete uselessness as members of society.”

“It is only just that anything that grows up on its own should feel it has nothing to repay for an upbringing which it owes no one.”

“Money-makers are tiresome company, as they have no standard but cash value.”

“Musical innovation is full of danger to the State, for when modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the State always change with them.”

“Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul.”

“No man should be angry at what is true. But those who love the truth in each thing are to be called lovers of wisdom and not lovers of opinion.”

“Nothing beautiful without struggle.”

“Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.”

“Physical excellence does not of itself produce a good mind and character: on the other hand, excellence of mind and character will make the best of the physique it is given.”

“That's what education should be, the art of orientation.”

“The beginning is the most important part of any work.”

“The comprehensive mind is always dialectical.”

“The heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.”

“The object of education is to teach us to love what is beautiful.”

“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.”