Top 983 Quotes & Sayings by Plato - Page 14

The prison of lust is just that very one of which the soul shuts the doors upon herself; for each act of indulgence is the shooting of a fresh bolt.

Let early education be a sort of amusement. You will then be better able to find out the natural bent.

The God of Love lives in a state of need.

Socrates said that, from above, the Earth looks like one of those twelve-patched leathern balls.

For a poet is an airy thing, winged and holy, and he is not able to make poetry until he becomes inspired and goes out of his mind and his intellect is no longer in him.

He is unworthy of the name of man who is ignorant of the fact that the diagonal of a square is incommensurable with its side.

Aspiring minds must sometimes sustain loss.

The affairs of music ought, somehow, to terminate in the love of the beautiful.

The greatest penalty of evil-doing is to grow into the likeness of a bad man.

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

If someone separated the art of counting and measuring and weighing from all the other arts, what was left of each (of the others) would be, so to speak, insignificant.

Mathematics is like draughts in being suitable for the young, not too difficult, amusing, and without peril to the state.

There is also a third kind of madness, which is possession by the Muses, enters into a delicate and virgin soul, and there inspiring frenzy, awakens lyric... But he, who, not being inspired and having no touch of madness in his soul, comes to the door and thinks he will get into the temple by the help of art - he, I say, and his poetry are not admitted; the sane man is nowhere at all when he enters into rivalry with the madman.

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

The function of the wing is to take what is heavy and raise it up in the region above.

I can show you that the art of calculation has to do with odd and even numbers in their numerical relations to themselves and to each other.

Do thine own work, and know thyself.

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.

Man is the plumeless genus of bipeds, birds are the plumed.

The wisdom of men is worth little or nothing.

Man is a two-legged animal without feathers.

To think truly is noble and to be deceived is base.

Conversion is not implanting eyes, for they exist already; but giving them a right direction, which they have not

Rhythm and harmony enter most powerfully into the inner most part of the soul and lay forcible hands upon it, bearing grace with them, so making graceful him who is rightly trained.

As it is, the lover of inquiry must follow his beloved wherever it may lead him.

No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew it was the greatest of evils.

Even God is said to be unable to use force against necessity.

Much more wretched than lackof health inthe body, it is to dwell with a soul that is not healthy, but corrupt.

The true musician is attuned to a fairer harmony than that of the lyre... for he truly has in his own life a harmony of words and deeds arranged in the Dorian mode. Such a one makes me joyous with the sound of his voice, so eager am I in drinking in his words.

And we shall most likely be defeated, and you will most likely be victors in the contest, if you learn so to order your lives as not to abuse or waste the reputation of your ancestors, knowing that to a man who has any self-respect, nothing is more dishonourable than to be honoured, not for his own sake, but on account of the reputation of his ancestors.

Every man is a poet when he is in love.

Such, Echecrates, was the end of our comrade, who was, we may fairly say, of all those whom we knew in our time, the bravest and also the wisest and most upright man.

Time on its back bears all things far away - Full many a challenge is wrought by many a day - Shape, fortune, name, and nature all decay

He who gives himself to a lover because he is a good man, and in the hope that he will be improved by his company, shows himself to be virtuous, even though the object of his affection turn out to be a villain, and to have no virtue; and if he is deceived he has committed a noble error. For he has proved that for his part he will do anything for anybody with a view to virtue and improvement, than which there can be nothing nobler.

And what do you say of lovers of wine... they are glad of any pretext of drinking any wine

Many are the noble words in which poets speak concerning the actions of men; but like yourself when speaking about Homer, they do not speak of them by any rules of art: they are simply inspired to utter that to which the Muse impels them, and that only; and when inspired, one of them will make dithyrambs, another hymns of praise, another choral strains, another epic or iambic verses- and he who is good at one is not good any other kind of verse: for not by art does the poet sing, but by power divine.

Not every love, but only that which has a noble purpose, is noble and worthy of praise.

The point which I should first wish to understand is whether the pious or holy is beloved by the gods because it is holy, or holy because it is beloved of the gods.

Our need will be the real creator.

As it is, lovers of inquiry must follow their beloved wherever it may lead.

For not by art does the poet sing, but by power divine. Had he learned by rules of art, he would have known how to speak not of one theme only, but of all; and therefore God takes away the minds of poets, and uses them as his ministers, as he also uses diviners and holy prophets, in order that we who hear them may know them to be speaking not of themselves who utter these priceless words in a state of unconsciousness, but that God himself is the speaker, and that through them he is conversing with us.

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

Poets do not compose their poems with knowledge, but by some inborn talent and by inspiration, like seers and prophets who also say many fine things without any understanding of what they say.

Equals, the proverb goes, delight in equals.

The deity on purpose [sings] the liveliest of all lyrics through the most miserable poet.

If you ask: What is the good of education? The answer is easy: Education makes good men and good men act nobly.

As long as I draw breath and am able, I won't give up practicing philosophy.

Take a look around, then, and see that none of the uninitiated are listening. Now by the uninitiated I mean the people who believe in nothing but what they can grasp in their hands, and who will not allow that action or generation or anything invisible can have real existence.

For our discussion is on no trifling matter, but on the right way to conduct our lives.

Let no one destitute of geometry enter my doors.

Writing is the geometry of the soul.

Human beings have Love for one another inborn in them - Love, reassembler of our ancient nature, who tries to make one out of two and to heal human nature.

What is at issue is the conversion of the mind from the twilight of error to the truth, that climb up into the real world which we shall call true philosophy.

The productions of all arts are kinds of poetry and their craftsmen are all poets.

It is beautiful to wish to add another's light to your own.

Observe that open loves are held to be more honourable than secret ones, and that the love of the noblest and highest, even if their persons are less beautiful than others, is especially honourable.

Ignorance: the root of all evil.

Even in reaching for the beautiful there is beauty, and also in suffering whatever it is that one suffers en route.

The mere athlete becomes too much of a savage.

Wherefore also these Kinds [elements] occupied different places even before the universe was organised and generated out of them. Before that time, in truth, all these were in a state devoid of reason or measure, but when the work of setting in order this Universe was being undertaken, fire and water and earth and air, although possessing some traces of their known nature, were yet disposed as everything is likely to be in the absence of God; and inasmuch as this was then their natural condition, God began by first marking them out into shapes by means of forms and numbers.