Top 983 Quotes & Sayings by Plato - Page 4

Access to power must be confined to those who are not in love with it.

Each man is capable of doing one thing well. If he attempts several, he will fail to achieve distinction in any.

We understand why children are afraid of darkness ... but why are men afraid of light?

Poverty doesn't come because of the decrease of wealth but because of the increase of desires.

Excellence" is not a gift, but a skill that takes practice. We do not act "rightly" because we are "excellent", in fact we achieve "excellence" by acting "rightly".

Let nobody speak mischief of anybody.

Mankind will never see an end of trouble until lovers of wisdom come to hold political power, or the holders of power become lovers of wisdom

The souls of people, on their way to Earth-life, pass through a room full of lights; each takes a taper - often only a spark - to guide it in the dim country of this world. But some souls, by rare fortune, are detained longer - have time to grasp a handful of tapers, which they weave into a torch. These are the torch-bearers of humanity - its poets, seers and saints, who lead and lift the race out of darkness, toward the light. They are the law-givers and saviors, the light-bringers, way-showers and truth-tellers, and without them, humanity would lose its way in the dark.

No one ever dies an atheist.

I know not how I may seem to others, but to myself I am but a small child wandering upon the vast shores of knowledge, every now and then finding a small bright pebble to content myself with

The true lover of knowledge naturally strives for truth, and is not content with common opinion, but soars with undimmed and unwearied passion till he grasps the essential nature of things.

Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back.

Happiness springs from doing good and helping others.

When you feel grateful, you become great, and eventually attract great things.

The philosopher is in love with truth, that is, not with the changing world of sensation, which is the object of opinion, but with the unchanging reality which is the object of knowledge.

Man's music is seen as a means of restoring the soul, as well as confused and discordant bodily afflictions, to the harmonic proportions that it shares with the world soul of the cosmos.

Democracy leads to anarchy, which is mob rule.

A tyrant... is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.

Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.

Life should be lived as play.

All wars are fought for the sake of getting money.

A true artist is someone who gives birth to a new reality.

Music and rhythm find their way into the secret places of the soul

You should not honor men more than truth.

Just as bees make honey from thyme, the strongest and driest of herbs, so do the wise profit from the most difficult of experiences.

The worst form of injustice is pretended justice.

He who is only an athlete is too crude, too vulgar, too much a savage. He who is a scholar only is too soft, to effeminate. The ideal citizen is the scholar athlete, the man of thought and the man of action.

Better a good enemy than a bad friend.

No soul willfully does wrong.

The first step in learning is the destruction of human conceit.

In order for man to succeed in life, God provided him with two means, education and physical activity. Not separately, one for the soul and the other for the body, but for the two together. With these means, man can attain perfection.

Only the dead have seen the end of war.

When man is not properly trained, he is the most savage animal on the face of the globe.

No man should be angry with what is true.

It is better to be wise, and not to seem so, than to seem wise, and not be so; yet men, for the most part, desire the contrary.

A dog has the soul of a philosopher.

Watch a man at play for an hour and you can learn more about him than in talking to him for a year.

Those who tell the stories rule society.

Follow your dream as long as you live, do not lessen the time of following desire, for wasting time is an abomination of the spirit.

The cure of the part should not be attempted without treatment of the whole. No attempt should be made to cure the body without the soul. Let no one persuade you to cure the head until he has first given you his soul to be cured, for this is the great error of our day, that physicians first separate the soul from the body.

The noblest of all studies is the study of what man is and of what life he should live.

But tell me, this physician of whom you were just speaking, is he a moneymaker, an earner of fees, or a healer of the sick?

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

The wise man will want to be ever with him who is better than himself.

I prefer nothing, unless it is true.

A house that has a library in it has a soul.

Friends should have all things in common.

Complacent ignorance is the most lethal sickness of the soul

There should exist among the citizens neither extreme poverty nor again excessive wealth, for both are productive of great evil.

The people always have 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.

Don't quarrel with your parents even if you are on the right.

He who is of a calm and happy nature, will hardly feel the pressure of age

All learning is in the learner, not the teacher.

Music has the capacity to touch the innermost reaches of the soul and music gives flight to the imagination.

The purpose of education is to give to the body and to the soul all the beauty and all the perfection of which they are capable.

The beginning is the most important part...for that is the time character is being formed.

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.

The essence of knowledge is self-knowledge.

In an honest man there is always something of a child.

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.