Famous quotes by »

Plato

ancient Athenian philosopher; pupil of Socrates; teacher of Aristotle (428-347 BC)

Update this biography »
Complete biography of Plato »

6 fans

Sort by:PopularityA - Z

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

– Plato

Rate it:

As empty vessels make the loudest sound, so they that have least with are the greatest babblers.

– Plato

Rate it:

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

– Plato

Rate it:

A man ought not to return evil for evil, as many think, since at no time ought we to do an injury to our neighbour.*

– Plato

Rate it:

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

– Plato

Rate it:

Democracy leads to anarchy, which is mob rule.

– Plato

Rate it:

Friends have all things in common.

– Plato

Rate it:

He was a wise man who invented God.

– Plato

Rate it:

He who does not desire power is fit to hold it.

– Plato

Rate it:

Thinking is the talking of the soul with itself.

– Plato

Rate it:

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.

– Plato

Rate it:

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

– Plato

Rate it:

Justice will only exist where those not affected by injustice are filled with the same amount of indignation as those offended.

– Plato

Rate it:

Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.

– Plato

Rate it:

Never discourage anyone...who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.

– Plato

Rate it:

Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses.

– Plato

Rate it:

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.

– Plato

Rate it:

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

– Plato

Rate it:

The harder you work, the luckier you get.

– Plato

Rate it:

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.

– Plato

Rate it:

Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.

– Plato

Rate it:

Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety and life to everything. It is the essence of order, and leads to all that is god, just, and beautiful, of which it is the invisible, but never less, dazzaling, passionate, and eternal form.

– Plato

Rate it:

Man...is a tame or civilized animal never the less, he requires proper instruction and a fortunate nature, and then of all animals he becomes the most divine and most civilized but if he be insufficiently or ill- educated he is the most savage of earthly creatures.

– Plato

Rate it:

Just as it would be madness to settle on medical treatment for the body of a person by taking an opinion poll of the neighbors, so it is irrational to prescribe for the body politic by polling the opinions of the people at large.

– Plato

Rate it:

Science is nothing but perception.

– Plato

Rate it:

Honesty is for the most part, less profitable than dishonesty.

– Plato

Rate it:

I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning.

– Plato

Rate it:

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, and life to everything.

– Plato

Rate it:

The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future life.

– Plato

Rate it:

Ignorance, the root and the stem of every evil.

– Plato

Rate it:

Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten imparting grace.

– Plato

Rate it:

Poetry comes nearer to vital truth than history.

– Plato

Rate it:

Philosophy is the highest music.

– Plato

Rate it:

Nothing can be more absurd than the practice that prevails in our country of men and women not following the same pursuits with all their strengths and with one mind, for thus, the state instead of being whole is reduced to half.

– Plato

Rate it:

False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.

– Plato

Rate it:

Courage is knowing what not to fear.

– Plato

Rate it:

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

– Plato

Rate it:

You cannot conceive the many without the one.

– Plato

Rate it:

Everything that deceives may be said to enchant.

– Plato

Rate it:

All men are by nature equal, made all of the same earth by one Workman; and however we deceive ourselves, as dear unto God is the poor peasant as the mighty prince.

– Plato

Rate it:

All things will be produced in superior quantity and quality, and with greater ease, when each man works at a single occupation, in accordance with his natural gifts, and at the right moment, without meddling with anything else.

– Plato

Rate it:

At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.

– Plato

Rate it:

Attention to health is life's greatest hindrance.

– Plato

Rate it:

Bekind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

– Plato

Rate it:

Death is not the worst than can happen to men.

– Plato

Rate it:

Death is not the worst than can happen to men.

– Plato

Rate it:

For this invention of yours will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn it, by causing them to neglect their memory, inasmuch as, from their confidence in writing, they will recollect by the external aid of foreign symbols, and not by the internal use of their own faculties. Your discovery, therefore, is a medicine not for memory, but for recollection-for recalling to, not for keeping in mind.

– Plato

Rate it:

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.

– Plato

Rate it:

He who is of 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.

– Plato

Rate it:

Hereditary honors are a noble and a splendid treasure to descendants.

– Plato

Rate it:

I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly combat.

– Plato

Rate it:

I have good hope that there is something after death.

– Plato

Rate it:

If a man says that it is right to give every one his due, and therefore thinks within his own mind that injury is due from a just man to his enemies but kindness to his friends, he was not wise who said so, for he spoke not the truth, for in no case has it appeared to be just to injure any one.*

– Plato

Rate it:

If one has made a mistake, and fails to correct it, one has made a greater mistake.

– Plato

Rate it:

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

– Plato

Rate it:

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.

– Plato

Rate it:

Ignorance, the root and the stem of every evil.

– Plato

Rate it:

Ignorance, the root and the stem of every evil.

– Plato

Rate it:

Knowledge is true opinion.

– Plato

Rate it:

Laws are partly formed for the sake of good men, in order to instruct them how they may live on friendly terms with one another, and partly for the sake of those who refuse to be instructed, whose spirit cannot be subdued, or softened, or hindered from plunging into evil.

– Plato

Rate it:

Let him take heart who does advance, even in the smallest degree.

– Plato

Rate it:

Life must be lived as play.

– Plato

Rate it:

Man...is a tame or civilized animal; never the less, he requires proper instruction and a fortunate nature, and then of all animals he becomes the most divine and most civilized; but if he be insufficiently or ill- educated he is the most savage of earthly creatures.

– Plato

Rate it:

Mankind censure injustice fearing that they may be the victims of it, and not because they shrink from committing it.

– Plato

Rate it:

Men say that everyone is naturally a lover of himself, and that it is right that it should be so. This is a mistake; for in fact the cause of all the blunders committed by man arises from this excessive self-love. For the lover is blinded by the object loved, so that he passes a wrong judgment upon what is just, good, and beautiful, thinking that he ought always to honour what belongs to himself, in preference to truth. For he who intends to be a great man ought to love neither himself nor his own things, but only what is just, whether it happens to be done by himself or by another.

– Plato

Rate it:

Misanthropy ariseth from a man trusting another without having sufficient knowledge of his character, and, thinking him to be truthful, sincere, and honourable, finds a little afterwards that he is wicked, faithless, and then he meets with another of the same character. When a man experiences this often, and more particularly from those whom he considered his most dear and best friends, at last, having frequently made a slip, he hates the whole world, and thinks that there is nothing sound at all in any of them.

– Plato

Rate it:

Must not all things at the last be swallowed up in death

– Plato

Rate it:

Never discourage anyone... who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.

– Plato

Rate it:

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

– Plato

Rate it:

No human thing is of serious importance.

– Plato

Rate it:

No human thing is of serious importance.

– Plato

Rate it:

No man should bring children into the world who is unwilling to persevere to the end in their nature and education.

– Plato

Rate it:

Not only is the old man twice a child, but also the man who is drunk.

– Plato

Rate it:

Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety.

– Plato

Rate it:

Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable.

– Plato

Rate it:

Only the dead have seen the end of war

– Plato

Rate it:

Only the dead have seen the end of the war.

– Plato

Rate it:

Philosophy is an elegant thing, if anyone modestly meddles with it; but if they are conversant with it more than is becoming, it corrupts them.

– Plato

Rate it:

Remember how in that communion only, beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities (for he has hold not of an image but of a reality), and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may.N.B. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. See also Napoleon Bonaparte.

– Plato

Rate it:

So as this only point among the rest remaineth sure and certain, namely, that nothing is certain.

– Plato

Rate it:

Strange times are these in which we live when old and young are taught in falsehood's school. And the one man who dares to tell the truth is called at once a lunatic and fool.

– Plato

Rate it:

The beginning is the most important part of the work.

– Plato

Rate it:

The greatest penalty of evildoing - namely, to grow into the likeness of bad men.

– Plato

Rate it:

The greatest wealth is to live content with little.

– Plato

Rate it:

The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways - I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows.

– Plato

Rate it:

The learning and knowledge that we have, is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant.

– Plato

Rate it:

The life which is unexamined is not worth living.

– Plato

Rate it:

The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things.

– Plato

Rate it:

The partisan, when he is engaged in a dispute, cares nothing about the rights of the question, but is anxious only to convince his hearers of his own assertions.

– Plato

Rate it:

The people have always some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness...This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs when he first appears he is a protector.

– Plato

Rate it:

The price good men pay for indifference to public attairs is to be ruled by evil men.

– Plato

Rate it:

The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.

– Plato

Rate it:

The soul of man is immortal and imperishable.

– Plato

Rate it:

The true lover of learning then must his earliest youth, as far as in him lies, desire all truth. . .He whose desires are drawn toward knowledge in every form will be absorbed in the pleasures of the soul, and will hardly feel bodily pleasures- -I mean, if he be a true philosopher and not a sham one. . .Then how can he who has the magnificence of mind and is the spectator of all times and all existence, think much of human life He cannot. Or can such a one account death fearful No indeed.

– Plato

Rate it:

There are few people so stubborn in their atheism who when danger is pressing in will not acknowledge the divine power.

– Plato

Rate it:

There are three arts which are concerned with all things: one which uses, another which makes and a third which imitates them

– Plato

Rate it:

There are three arts which are concerned with all things one which uses, another which makes, and a third which imitates them.

– Plato

Rate it:

There is no such thing as a lover's 0ath.

– Plato

Rate it:

There is no such thing as a lover's oath.

– Plato

Rate it:

They certainly give very strange names to diseases

– Plato

Rate it:

They certainly give very strange names to diseases.

– Plato

Rate it:

To the rulers of the state then, if to any, it belongs of right to use falsehood, to deceive either enemies or their own citizens, for the good of the state: and no one else may meddle with this privilege.

– Plato

Rate it:

Too much attention to health is a hindrance to learning, to invention, and to studies of any kind, for we are always feeling suspicious shootings and swimmings in our heads, and we are prone to blame studies from them.

– Plato

Rate it:

We are twice armed if we fight with faith.

– Plato

Rate it:

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.

– Plato

Rate it:

We can forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.

– Plato

Rate it:

Wealth is the parent of luxury and indolence, and poverty of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent.

– Plato

Rate it:

When men speak ill of thee, live so as nobody may believe them.

– Plato

Rate it:

When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income.

– Plato

Rate it:

Wisdom alone is the true and unalloyed coin for which we ought to exchange all things, for this and with this everything is bought and sold?fortitude, temperance, and justice; in a word, true virtue subsists with wisdom.

– Plato

Rate it:

Wise men talk because they have something to say, fools, because they have to say something.

– Plato

Rate it:

Wise men talk because they have something to say fools, because they have to say something.

– Plato

Rate it:

You are young, my son, and, as the years go by, time will change and even reverse many of your present opinions. Refrain therefore awhile from setting yourself up as a judge of the highest matters.

– Plato

Rate it:

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation

– Plato

Rate it:

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation

– Plato

Rate it:

Share your thoughts on Plato's quotes with the community:

0 Comments

Notify me of new comments via email.

Quote of the Day Today's Quote | Archive

Would you like us to send you a FREE inspiring quote delivered to your inbox daily?

Citation

Use the citation below to add this author page to your bibliography:

Style:MLAChicagoAPA

"Plato Quotes." Quotes.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.quotes.net/authors/Plato+Quotes>.

Missing a quote of Plato?

Know another good quote of Plato? Don't keep it to yourself!

The Web's Largest Resource for

Famous Quotes & Sayings

A Member Of The STANDS4 Network

Our favorite collection of

Famous Authors

Emily Dickinson
1830 - 1886
Abraham Lincoln
1809 - 1865
Sigmund Freud
1856 - 1939
Ernest Hemingway
1899 - 1961
Confucius
551 BC - 479 BC
Galileo Galilei
1564 - 1642
Mother Teresa
1910 - 1997

Browse Quotes.net

#A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Quiz

Are you a quotes master?

What TV series is this quote from: "Everybody lies."?

A Grey's Anatomy

B Fargo

C House

D The West Wing