Plato was a Greek philosopher who lived from 428/427 BC to 348/347 BC. He was a student of Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle. Plato is known for his writings on a wide range of topics, including ethics, politics, metaphysics, epistemology, and more.
Plato’s philosophy is centered around the idea that there is a realm of abstract concepts and ideas that exist separately from the physical world. He believed that knowledge of this realm was attainable through reason and reflection, and that this knowledge was more valuable than knowledge of the physical world.
One of Plato’s most famous works is “The Republic,” in which he presents his ideas on justice and the ideal society. He also founded the Academy in Athens, which was one of the earliest institutions of higher learning in the Western world.
Plato’s influence on philosophy has been significant, and his ideas continue to be studied and debated to this day.
Pleasure is the bait of sin.
Philosophy is the highest music.
Love is a serious mental disease.
Ideas are the source of all things.
Knowledge is the food of the soul.
All learning has an emotional base.
Nothing beautiful without struggle.
Writing is the geometry of the soul.
Time is the moving image of reality.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Man is a being in search of meaning.
Courage is knowing what not to fear.
There is no such thing as a lover’s oath.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
A house that has a library in it has a soul.
No human thing is of serious importance.
Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.
Ignorance, the root and stem of every evil.
The first and best victory is to conquer self.
You should not honor men more than truth.
Books are immortal sons defying their sires.
Wonder is the only beginning of philosophy.
A life without investigation is not worth living.
The soul of man is immortal and imperishable.
I’m trying to think, don’t confuse me with facts.
At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.
Everything that deceives may be said to enchant.
The measure of a man is what he does with power.
All I really know is the extent of my own ignorance.
Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous.
Excellence is not a gift, but a skill that takes practice.
No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth.
The beginning is the most important part of the work.
Those who don’t know must learn from those who do.
Let the speaker speak truly and the judge decide justly.
The madness of love is the greatest of heaven’s blessings.
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.
No wealth can ever make a bad man at peace with himself.
Honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty.
Education is teaching our children to desire the right things.
The object of education is to teach us to love what is beautiful.
Love is simply the name for the desire and pursuit of the whole.
Lack of activity destroys the good condition of every human being.
For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories.
Any man may easily do harm, but not every man can do good to another.
I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning.
The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future life.
Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others.
Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand.
False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.
I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.
Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity.
We do not learn, and that what we call learning is only a process of recollection.
Let parents then bequeath to their children not riches but the spirit of reverence.
Never discourage anyone. Who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.
Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.
There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain.
The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things.
Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another.
It’s better in fact to be guilty of manslaughter than of fraud about what is fair and just.
The heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.
You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.
When we are ill we do not ask for the handsomest physician, or the most eloquent one.
If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.
He who wishes to serve his country must have not only the power to think, but the will to act.
Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.
Excess of liberty, whether it lies in state or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery.
If it were necessary either to do wrong or to suffer it, I should choose to suffer rather than do it.
An empty vessel makes the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers.
There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help, and what they can not.
The virtuous man combines the highest, lowest and middle chords in complete harmony within himself.
When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income.
To the degree that I cease to pursue my deepest passions, I will gradually be controlled by my deepest fears.
In politics we presume that everyone who knows how to get votes knows how to administer a city or a state.
For this feeling of wonder shows that you are a philosopher, since wonder is the only beginning of philosophy.
Wealth is the parent of luxury and indolence, and poverty of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.
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.
Love is a madness produced by an unsatisfiable rational desire to understand the ultimate truth about the world.
The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death.
Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song.
No man should bring children into the world who is unwilling to persevere to the end in their nature and education.
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.
No matter how hard you fight the darkness, every light casts a shadow, and the closer you get to the light, the darker that shadow becomes.
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.”
Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.
I would teach children music, physics, and philosophy; but most importantly music, for the patterns in music and all the arts are the keys to learning.
Man is a prisoner who has no right to open the door of his prison and run away. A man should wait, and not take his own life until God summons him.
The love of the gods belongs to anyone who has given to true virtue and nourished it, and if any human being could become immortal, it would be he.
Only a philosopher’s mind grows wings, since its memory always keeps it as close as possible to those realities by being close to which the gods are divine.
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.
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.
If a man can be properly said to love something, it must be clear that he feels affection for it as a whole, and does not love part of it to the exclusion of the rest.
For as there are misanthropists, or haters of men, there are also misologists, or haters of ideas, and both spring from the same cause, which is ignorance of the world.
Strange times are these in which we live when old and young are taught falsehoods in school. And the person that dares to tell the truth is called at once a lunatic and fool.
Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.
“Only the dead have seen the end of war.”
“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.”
“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.”