Platão

The true lover of learning then must his earliest youth, as far as in him lies, desire all truth . . .

God ever geometrizes.

[ Socrates speaking :] Let us suppose that every mind contains a kind of aviary stocked with birds of every sort, some in flocks apart from the rest, some in small groups, and some solitary, flying in any direction among them all. . . . When we are babies we must suppose this receptacle empty, and take the birds to stand for pieces of knowledge. Whenever a person acquires any piece of knowledge and shuts it up in his enclosure, we must say he has learned or discovered the thing of which this is the knowledge, and that is what “knowing” means.

[ Socrates speaking :] Democracy . . . would, it seems, be a delightful form of government, anarchic and motley, assigning a kind of equality indiscriminately to equals and unequals alike!

[ Socrates speaking :] Picture men dwelling in a sort of subterranean cavern with a long entrance open to the light on its entire width. . . . Like to us. . . . Tell me do you think that these men would have seen anything of themselves or of one another except the shadows cast from the fire on the wall of the cave that fronted them?

[ Thrasymachus speaking :] I affirm that the just is nothing else than the advantage of the stronger.

[ Socrates speaking :] Unless either philosophers become kings in our states or those whom we now call our kings and rulers take to the pursuit of philosophy seriously and adequately, and there is a conjunction of these two things, political power and philosophical intelligence, while the motley horde of the natures who at present pursue either apart from the other are compulsorily excluded, there can be no cessation of troubles, dear Glaucon, for our states, nor, I fancy, for the human race either. Nor, until this happens, will this constitution which we have been expounding in theory ever be put into practice within the limits of possibility and see the light of the sun.

[ Socrates speaking :] If men learn this [writing], it will implant forgetfulness in their souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks. . . . And it is no true wisdom that you offer your disciples, but only its semblance, for by telling them of many things without teaching them you will make them seem to know much, while for the most part they know nothing, and as men filled, not with wisdom, but with the conceit of wisdom, they will be a burden to their fellows.

[ Of Socrates :] 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.

[ Socrates speaking :] Life without this sort of examination is not worth living.

[ Socrates speaking :] Is what is holy holy because the gods approve it, or do they approve it because it is holy?

[ Socrates speaking, describing the charge against him :] Socrates is guilty of corrupting the minds of the young, and of believing in deities of his own invention instead of the gods recognized by the state.

They deem him their worst enemy who tells them the truth.

There are some whom the applause of the multitude has deluded into the belief that they are really statesmen.

Violent pleasures which reach the soul through the body are generally of this sort—they are reliefs of pain.

The true creator is necessity, who is the mother of our invention.

[Love is] the joy of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the gods; desired by those who have no part in him, and precious to those who have the better part in him.

Trees and fields tell me nothing; men are my teachers.

All knowledge that is divorced from justice must be called cunning.

Most people affirm pleasure to be the good, but the finer sort of wits say it is knowledge.

Everywhere there is one principle of justice, which is the interest of the stronger.

The judge should not be young; he should have learned to know evil, not from his own soul, but from late and long observation of the nature of evil in others.

As to the artists, do we not know that he only of them whom love inspires has the light of fame?—he whom love touches not walks in darkness.

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

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

It will be hard to discover a better [method of education] than that which the experience of so many ages has already discovered, and this may be summed up as consisting in gymnastics for the body, and _music_ for the soul... For this reason is a musical education so essential; since it causes Rhythm and Harmony to penetrate most intimately into the soul, taking the strongest hold upon it, filling it with _beauty_ and making the man _beautiful-minded_.

Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat. Robert Frost Poetry comes nearer to vital truth than history.

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.

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

The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government is to live under the government of worse men.

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.

They certainly give very strange names to diseases.

You cannot conceive the many without the one.

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

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

He was a wise man who invented God.

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

...Then anyone who leaves behind him a written manual, and likewise anyone who receives it, in the belief that such writing will be clear and certain, must be exceedingly simple-minded...

The greatest mistake in the treatment of diseases is that there are physicians for the body and physicians for the soul, although the two cannot be separated.

A dog has the soul of a philosopher.

I think a man's duty is to find out where the truth is, or if he cannot, at least to take the best possible human doctrine and the hardest to disprove, and to ride on this like a raft over the waters of life.

Someday, in the distant future, our grandchildren's grandchildren will develop a new equivalent of our classrooms. They will spend many hours in front of boxes with fires glowing within. May they have the wisdom to know the difference between light and knowledge.

This I know - that I know nothing.

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

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

The worst form of injustice is pretended justice.

To do injustice is more disgraceful than to suffer it.

Maybe being grateful means recognizing what you have for what it is. Appreciating small victories. Admiring the struggle it takes to simply be human. At the end of the day, the fact that we have the courage to still be standing is reason enough to celebrate. Meredith Grey ABOUT THE AUTHOR B. Ashiedu lives in the UK with her awesome husband. She enjoys exploring museums and new places with her husband.

If you want to find happiness, find gratitude. Steve Maraboli

Take full account of what Excellences you possess, and in gratitude remember how you would hanker after them, if you had them not. Marcus Aurelius

They are not poor that have little, but they that desire much. The richest man, whatever his lot, is the one who’s content with his lot. Dutch Proverb

Both abundance and lack exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend. When we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that’s present; love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature and personal pursuits that bring us pleasure; the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience Heaven on earth. Sarah Breathnach

When we become more fully aware that our success is due in large measure to the loyalty, helpfulness, and encouragement we have received from others, our desire grows to pass on similar gifts. Gratitude spurs us on to prove ourselves worthy of what others have done for us. The spirit of gratitude is a powerful energizer. Wilfred A. Peterson

Live your life so that the fear of death can never enter your heart. When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the morning light. Give thanks for your life and strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. And if perchance you see no reason for giving thanks, rest assured the fault is in yourself. Tecumseh Shawnee Chief

Be thankful for what you have. You have no idea how many people would love to have what you've got. Unknown

Be thankful to all those people who have hurt you or disappointed you. Because they are the one who made you wise and strong. Anurag Prakash Ray

Gratitude unlocks fullness of life. It imparts a sense of satisfaction and appreciation. In the meantime one should not forget that it is not only word or expression, but make it meaningful and to live up to expectations. Dr. Anil Kr Sinha

Nothing could be more important than that the work of a soldier is well done.

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

Wisdom always makes men fortunate: for by wisdom no man could ever err, and therefore, he must act rightly and succeed, or his wisdom would be wisdom no longer.

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.

Without any one teaching him he will recover his knowledge for himself, if he is only asked questions

Will life be worth having, if that higher part of man be destroyed, which is improved by justice and depraved by injustice?

Whenever anyone informs us that he has found a man who knows all the arts, and all things else that anybody knows, and every single thing with a higher degree of accuracy than any other man –whoever tells us this, I think that we can only imagine him to be a simple creature who is likely to have been deceived by some wizard or actor whom he met, and whom he thought all-knowing, because he himself was unable to analyze the nature of knowledge and ignorance and imitation.

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

What shall we say about those spectators, then, who can see a plurality of beautiful things, but not beauty itself, and who are incapable of following if someone else tries to lead them to it, and who can see many moral actions, but not morality itself, and so on? That they only ever entertain beliefs, and do not know any of the things they believe?

When the rhetorician is more persuasive than the physician, the ignorant is more persuasive with the ignorant than he who has knowledge? Is not that the inference?

When I hear a man discoursing of virtue, or of any sort of wisdom, who is a true man and worthy of his theme, I am delighted beyond measure: and I compare the man and his words, and note the harmony and correspondence of them. And such a one I deem to be the true musician, having in himself a fairer harmony than that of the lyre.

When you admonish a wrongdoer, do so gently, that it may not lead to hostility.

When anything is in the presence of evil, but is not as yet evil, the presence of good arouses the desire of good in that thing; but the presence of evil, which makes a thing evil, takes away the desire and friendship of the good; for that which was once both good and evil has now become evil only, and the good has no friendship with evil.

We shall be better and braver and less helpless if we think that we ought to enquire, than we should have been if we indulged in the idle fancy that there was no knowing and no use in seeking to know what we do not know;— that is a theme upon which I am ready to fight, in word and deed, to the utmost of my power.

What kind of man am I? One of those who would be pleased to be refuted if I say anything untrue, and who would be pleased to refute anyone who says anything untrue; one who, however, wouldn’t be any less pleased to be refuted than to refute. For I count being refuted a greater good, insofar as it is a greater good for oneself to be delivered from the worst thing there is than to deliver someone else from it.

We are like people looking for something they have in their hands all the time; we're looking in all directions except at the thing we want, which is probably why we haven't found it.

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

Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils — no, nor the human race, as I believe — and then only will this our State have a possibility of life and behold the light of day.

True friendship can exist only between equals.

Wars and revolutions and battles, you see, are due simply and solely to the body and its desires. All wars are undertaken for the acquisition of wealth; and the reason why we have to acquire wealth is the body, because we are slaves in its service.

True opinions are a fine thing and do all sorts of good so long as they stay in their place; but they will not stay long. They run away from a man's mind, so they are not worth much until you tether them by working out the reason. Once they are tied down, they become knowledge, and are stable.

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.

To fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise without really being wise, for it is to think that we know what we do not know. For no one knows whether death may not be the greatest good that can happen to man.

Those who tell the stories rule society.

Those whose hearts are fixed on reality itself deserve the title of Philosophers.

Those who have a natural talent for calculation are generally quick-witted at every other kind of knowledge; and even the dull, if they have had an arithmetical training, although they may derive no other advantage from it, always become much quicker than they would have been.

Those who have knowledge are more confident than those who have no knowledge, and they are more confident after they have learned than before.

This world is indeed a living being endowed with a soul and intelligence ... a single visible living entity containing all other living entities, which by their nature are all related.

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

This feeling of wonder shows that you are a philosopher, since wonder is the only beginning of philosophy.

Think only of the ambition of men, and you will wonder at the senselessness of their ways, unless you consider how they are stirred by the love of an immortality of fame. They are ready to run all risks greater far than they would have run for their children, and to spend money and undergo any sort of toil, and even to die, for the sake of leaving behind them a name which shall be eternal.

They think that you bear old age more easily not because of the way you live but because you’re wealthy, for the wealthy, they say, have many consolations.

There's no chance of their having a conscious glimpse of the truth as long as they refuse to disturb the things they take for granted and remain incapable of explaining them. For if your starting point is unknown, and your end-point and intermediate stages are woven together out of unknown material, there may be coherence, but knowledge is completely out of the question.

There's a victory and defeat. The first and best of victories, the lowest and worst of defeats which each man gains or sustains at the hands not of another, but of himself.

This alone is to be feared: the closed mind, the sleeping imagination, the death of spirit.

There is nothing I like better than conversing with aged men. For I regard them as travelers who have gone a journey which I too may have to go, and of whom I ought to inquire whether the way is smooth and easy or rugged and difficult. Is life harder toward the end, or what report do you give it?

There is, in my view, the birth of society that each of us, far from being sufficient to itself, on the contrary need a large number of people

There can be no fairer spectacle than that of a man, who combines the possession of moral beauty in his soul with the outward beauty of form, corresponding and harmonizing with the former, because the same great pattern enters both.

Those who don't know must learn from those who do.

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

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

The wrong use of a thing is far worse than the non-use.

The useful is the noble and the hurtful is the base

The true order of going, or being led by another, to the things of love, is to begin from the beauties of earth and mount upwards for the sake of that other beauty, using these steps only, and from one going on to two, and from two to all fair forms to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and, at last, knows what the essence of beauty is.

The truth is, O men of Athens, that God only is wise; and by his answer he intends to show that the wisdom of men is worth little or nothing.

The whole life of the philosopher is a preparation for death.

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.

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

The worst type of man behaves as badly in his waking life as some men do in their dreams.

The thing to be done does not choose, I imagine, to tarry the leisure of the doer, but the doer must be at the beck of the thing to be done, and not treat it as a secondary affair.

The State which we have founded must possess the four cardinal virtues of wisdom, courage, discipline and justice ... Justice is the principle which has in fact been followed throughout, the principle of one man one job, of minding ones own business, in the sense of doing the job for which one is naturally fitted and not interfering with other people.

The soul takes nothing with her to the next world but her education and her culture. At the beginning of the journey to the next world, one's education and culture can either provide the greatest assistance, or else act as the greatest burden, to the person who has just died.

The soul of him who has education is whole and perfect and escapes the worst disease, but, if a man's education be neglected, he walks lamely through life and returns good for nothing to the world below.

The reason is that they utter these words of theirs not by virtue of a skill, but by a divine power - otherwise, if they knew how to speak well on one topic thanks to a skill, they would know how to speak about every other topic too.

The rhetorician need not know the truth about things; he has only to discover some way of persuading the ignorant that he has more knowledge than those who know.

The soul takes flight to the world that is invisible but there arriving she is sure of bliss and forever dwells in paradise.

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 plan grows under the author's hand; new thoughts occur to him in the act of writing; he has not worked out the argument to the end before he begins.

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.

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.

The perfect state is one where men weep and rejoice over the same things.

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.

The tools that would teach men their own use would be beyond price.

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.

The only real ill-doing is the deprivation of knowledge.

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

The more the pleasures of the body fade away, the greater to me is the pleasure and charm of conversation.

The matter is as it is in all other cases: If it is naturally in you to be a good orator, a notable orator you will be when you have acquired knowledge and practice.

The philosopher whose dealings are with divine order himself acquires the characteristics of order and divinity.

The man deserved his fate, deny it who can; yes, but the fate did not deserve the man.

The man who finds that in the course of his life he has done a lot of wrong often wakes up at night in terror, like a child with a nightmare, and his life is full of foreboding: but the man who is conscious of no wrongdoing is filled with cheerfulness and hope.

The makers of fortunes have a second love of money as a creation of their own, resembling the affection of authors for their own poems, or of parents for their children, besides that natural love of it for the sake of use and profit which is common to them and all men. And hence they are very bad company, for they can talk about nothing but the praises of wealth.

The madness of love is the greatest of heaven's blessings.

The like is not the friend of the like in as far as he is like; still the good may be the friend of the good in as far as he is good.

The love, more especially, which is concerned with the good, and which is perfected in company with temperance and justice, whether among gods or men, has the greatest power, and is the source of all our happiness and harmony, and makes us friends with the gods who are above us, and with one another.

The good are like one another, and friends to one another; and ... the bad, as is often said of them, are never at unity with one another or with themselves, but are passionate and restless: and that which is at variance and enmity with itself is not likely to be in union or harmony with any other thing.

The key is not to live but to live well.

The helpful is beautiful; only the harmful is ugly.

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

The excellence and righteousness for each thing depend solely on the use for which it was created. This naturally means that the user has the most experience of it and must tell the maker how it works best.

The desire for sex turns the penis into a disobedient thing with a mind of its own. Like an animal that will not listen ..it tries to take complete control.

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

The constrained performance of bodily labour does, it is true, exert no evil influence on the body; but in the case of the mind, no study, pursued under compulsion, remains rooted in the memory.

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.

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

The body is the tomb of the soul

The desires of the worthless many are controlled by the desires and knowledge of the decent few

Some have courage in pleasures, and some in pains; some in desires, and some in fears; and some are cowards under the same conditions.

Prefer diligence before idleness, unless you esteem rust above brightness.

Self-conquest is the greatest of victories.

Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand.

Pleasure is the bait of sin

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.

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.

Philosophy, Socrates, if pursued in moderation and at the proper age, is an elegant accomplishment, but too much philosophy is the ruin of human life.

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. A man who uses reminders of these things correctly is always at the highest, most perfect level of initiation, and he is the only one who is perfect as perfect can be. He stands outside human concerns and draws close to the divine; ordinary people think he is disturbed and rebuke him for this, unaware that he is possessed by god.

Of necessity, the most like are most full of envy, strife, and hatred of one another, and the most unlike of friendship. For the poor man is compelled to be the friend of the rich, and the weak requires the aid of the strong, and the sick man of the physician; everyone who knows not has to love and court him who knows.

Now actions vary according to the manner of their performance. Take, for example, that which we are now doing, drinking, singing and talking these actions are not in themselves either good or evil, but they turn out in this or that way according to the mode of performing them; and when well done they are good, and when wrongly done they are evil; and in like manner not every love, but only that which has a noble purpose, is noble and worthy of praise.

Old age has a great sense of calm and freedom. When the passions have relaxed their hold and have escaped, not from one master, but from many.

Philosophers are the ones who can reach what always stays the same in every respect, and non- philosophers the ones who cannot, who wonder among the many things that go in every direction.

Our love for our children springs from the soul's greatest yearning for immortality.

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

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

No tools will make a man a skilled workmen, or master of defense, or be of any use to him who has not learned how to handle them and has never bestowed any attention on them.

No wealth can ever make a bad man at peace with himself

No one punishes the evil-doer under the notion, or for the reason, that he has done wrong. Only the unreasonable fury of a beast acts in that way. But he who desires to inflict rational punishment does not retaliate for a past wrong, for that which is done cannot be undone, but he has regard to the future, and is desirous that the man who is punished, and he who sees him punished, may be deterred from doing wrong again.

No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth.

No one ever dies an atheist.

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.

No knowledge considers or prescribes for the advantage of the stronger, but for that of the weaker, which it rules

No intelligent man will ever be so bold as to put into language those things which his reason has contemplated.

No human thing is of serious importance.

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

Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue.

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

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, dazzling, passionate, and eternal form.

Must not all things at last be swallowed up in Death?

Music then is simply the result of the effects of Love on rhythm and harmony.

Men say that we ought not to enquire into the supreme God and the nature of the universe, nor busy ourselves in searching out the causes of things, and that such enquiries are impious; whereas the very opposite is the truth.

Many men are loved by their enemies, and hated by their friends, and are the friends of their enemies, and the enemies of their friends.

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

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

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.

Most men in power become villains

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.

Man is a being in search of meaning.

Love is of the beautiful, and therefore has not the beautiful. And the beautiful is the good, and therefore, in wanting and desiring the beautiful, love also wants and desires the good

Lust is inseparably accompanied with the troubling of all order, with impudence, unseemliness, sloth, and dissoluteness.

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.

Love is of something, and that which love desires is not that which love is or has; for no man desires that which he is or has. .

‎ Love is a madness produced by an unclassifiable rational desire to understand the ultimate truth about the world.

Life must be lived as play, playing certain games, making sacrifices, singing and dancing, and then a man will be able to propitiate the gods, and defend himself against his enemies, and win in the contest.

Life is a short exile

Let the speaker speak truly and the judge decide justly.

Let nobody speak mischief of anybody.

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

Lack of activity destroys the good condition of every human being

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.

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.

Knowledge is the food of the soul.

Justice, although it resembles a mirage, is really concerned with internal rather than external activity, with the true self and its business.

Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous.

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.

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

It's not at all uncommon to find a person's desires compelling him to go against his reason, and to see him cursing himself and venting his passion on the source of the compulsion within him. It's as if there were two warring factions, with passion fighting on the side of reason.

It would be better for me that multitudes of men should disagree with me rather than that I, being one, should be out of harmony with myself.

It's like this, I think: the excellence of a good body doesn't make the soul good, but the other way around: the excellence of a good soul makes the body as good as it can be.

It seems to me that many fall into it even against their will, and fancy they are discussing, when they are merely debating, because they cannot distinguish the meanings of a term, in their investigation of any question, but carry on their opposition to what is stated, by attacking the mere words, employing the art of debate, and not that of philosophical discussion.

It is the task of the enlightened not only to ascend to learning and to see the good but to be willing to descend again to those prisoners and to share their troubles and their honors, whether they are worth having or not. And this they must do, even with the prospect of death.

It is only the dead who have seen the end of war.

It is impossible to improve the world if first the man does not improve.

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

It is a common saying, and in everybody's mouth, that life is but a sojourn. The learning and knowledge that we have, is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant.

It is by justice, that we can authenticate a man's value or nullity, the absence of justice, is the absence of what makes him man.

It behooves those who take the young to task to leave them room for excuse, lest they drive them to be hardened by too much rebuke.

Isn't it a bad thing to be deceived about the truth, and a good thing to know what the truth is?

Is there any self-existent fire? and do all those things which we call self-existent exist? or are only those things which we see, or in some way perceive through the bodily organs, truly existent, and nothing whatever besides them? And is all that which we call an intelligible essence nothing at all, and only a name?

Is there anything worse for a state than to be split and disunited? or better than cohesion and unity?

Is there a perfect world?

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.

You don’t seem to love money too much. And those who haven’t made their own money are usually like you. But those who have made it for themselves are twice as fond of it as those who haven’t.

In politics we presume that everyone who knows how to get votes knows how to administer a city or a state. When we are ill… we do not ask for the handsomest physician, or the most eloquent one.

Is not the love of learning identical with a philosophical disposition?

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.

If you are wise, all men will be your friends and kindred, for you will be useful.

If you do not take an interest in the affairs of your government, then you are doomed to live under the rule of fools.

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

They master certain pleasures because they are mastered by others, I fear this is not the right exchange to attain virtue, to exchange pleasures for pleasures, pains for pains, and fears for fears, the greater for the less like coins, but that they only valid currency for which all these things should be exchanged is wisdom .

If people despise money when young, but grow to love it more and more as they grow older and no longer devote themselves to excellence as the best guardian, the power of reasoned, educated speech, leaves them.

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

If a man says that it is right to give everyone 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.

If a person does not attend to the meaning of terms as they are commonly used in argument, he may be involved even in greater paradoxes.

If a painter, then, paints a picture of an ideally beautiful man, complete to the last detail, is he any the worse painter because he cannot show that such a man could really exist?

If a man perfectly righteous should come upon earth, he would find so much opposition that he would be imprisoned, reviled, scourged, and in fine crucified by such, who, though they were extremely wicked, would yet pass for righteous 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.

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.

I thought to myself: I am wiser than this man; neither of us probably knows anything that is really good, but he thinks he has knowledge, when he has not, while I, having no knowledge, do not think I have.

I used to imagine that no human can make men good; but I know better now.

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

I prefer nothing, unless it is true.

I must go beyond the dark world of sense information to the clear brilliance of the sunlight of the outside world. Once done, it becomes my duty to go back to the cave in order to illuminate the minds of those imprisoned in the ‘darkness’ of sensory knowledge.

I perplex others, not because I am clear, but because I am utterly perplexed myself.

I must distinguish between that which always is and never becomes and which is apprehended by reason and reflection, and that which always becomes and never is and is conceived by opinion with the help of sense.

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.

I have good hope that there is something after death.

I have a theory that you can make any sentence seem profound by writing the name of a dead philosopher at the end of it.

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

I don't think we shall quarrel about a word the subject of our inquiry is too important for that.

I am speaking like a book, but I believe that what I am saying is true.

I am smart because I know I nothing.

You know that the beginning is the most important part of any work, especially in the case of a young and tender thing; for that is the time at which the character is being formed and the desired impression is more readily taken. Shall we just carelessly allow children to hear any casual tales which may be devised by casual persons, and to receive into their minds ideas for the most part the very opposite of those which we should wish them to have when they are grown up?

I am not given to finding fault, for there are innumerable fools.

How singular is the thing called pleasure, and how curiously related to pain, which might be thought to be the opposite of it; for they never come to a man together, and yet he who pursues either of them is generally compelled to take the other. They are two, and yet they grow together out of one head or stem.

Hope,' he says, 'cherishes the soul of him who lives justice and holiness, and is the nurse of his age and the companion of his journey; hope which is mightiest to sway the restless soul of man.

You ought not to attempt to cure the eyes without the head, or the head without the eyes, so neither ought you to attempt to cure the body without the soul.

You should not honor men more than truth.

He who refuses to rule is liable to be ruled by one who is worse than himself.

He who wishes to serve his country must have not only the power to think, but the will to act

He who is not a good servant will not be a good master.

He who can properly define and divide is to be considered a god.

He that lendeth to another in time of prosperity, shall never want help himself in the time of adversity.

He could not harm me, for I do not think it is permitted that a better man be harmed by a worse

Have you not perceived that imitations, whether of bodily gestures, tones of voice, or modes of thought, if they be persevered in from an early age, are apt to grow into habits and a second nature?

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?

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.

Great crimes and pure evil come only from vigorous natures perverted by upbringing; a weak nature never does anything great, good or evil.

He best keeps from anger who remembers that God is always looking upon him

God is the cause only of good.

Friends have all things in common.

For all good and evil, whether in the body or in human nature, originates in the soul, and overflows from thence, as from the head into the eyes.

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".

For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories.

Evil is the vulgar lover who loves the body rather than the soul, inasmuch as he is not even stable, because he loves a thing which is in itself unstable, and therefore when the bloom of youth which he was desiring is over, he takes wing and flies away, in spite of all his words and promises; whereas the love of the noble disposition is life-long, for it becomes one with the everlasting.

Excellence of understanding comes from something divine, whereas the other excellences are probably close to the body.

Evil is more opposed to the good than to the no-good.

Everything desires not like but unlike: for example, the dry desires the moist, the cold the hot, the bitter the sweet, the sharp the blunt, the void the full, the fill the void, and so of all other things; for the opposite is the food of the opposite, whereas receives nothing from like.

Everyone thinks because it is solely responsible for the wisdom or folly of his life, that is to say of his destiny.

Everyone seeks his half

Every king springs from a race of slaves, and every slave had kings among his ancestors.

Even the gods love jokes.

Eat and drink and sit with the mighty, and make yourself agreeable to them; for from the good you will learn what is good, but if you mix with the bad you will lose the intelligence which you already have.

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.

Either never, or very seldom, do the quiet actions in life appear to be better than the quick and energetic ones.

Excellence must be the health and wellbeing of the soul.

Does not every man love that which he deems noble and just and good, and hate the opposite of them? people regard the same things, some as just and others as unjust, about these they dispute; and so there arise wars and fightings among them.

Each person must tend to the business that accords with his nature.

Doesn’t it follow that a ship’s captain or ruler won’t seek and order what is advantageous to himself, but what is advantageous to a sailor?.. No one in any position of rule, insofar as he is a ruler, seeks or orders what is advantageous to himself, but what is advantageous to his subjects; the ones of whom he is himself the craftsman. It is to his subjects and what is advantageous and proper to them that he looks, and everything he says and does he says and does for them.

Don't force your children into your ways, for they were created for a time different from your own.

Democracy passes into despotism.

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.

Democracy is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequal alike.

Courage is a kind of salvation. Courage is knowing what not to fear.

Complacent ignorance is the most lethal sickness of the soul

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

By harming a horse, you decrease his excellence. Thus, by harming a person, you decrease their excellence.

Certainly we shall have to look to ourselves, and try to find someone who will help in some way or other to improve us.

Between the best of all, which is to do injustice and not be punished, and the worst of all, which is to suffer injustice without the power of retaliation; and justice, being at a middle point between the two, is tolerated not as a good, but as the lesser evil.

Books are immortal sons defying their sires.

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.

But of the heaven which is above the heavens, what earthly poet ever did or ever will sing worthily?

Because people want more and more possessions, they start wanting more money, and thus honor money more and excellence less. Accordingly, the wealthy become more honored, and the people of excellence less honored. With the majority now money-loving businessmen instead of lovers of victory and honor, the admirable rich men will be put into office, and the poor will be dishonored.

Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity I mean the true simplicity of a rightly and nobly ordered mind and character, not that other simplicity which is only a euphemism for folly.

Beauty is certainly a soft, smooth, slippery thing, and therefore of a nature which easily slips in and permeates our souls.

Beauty is the splendor of truth.

He whom love touches not walks in darkness

Love is a good poet and accomplished in all the fine arts; for no one can give to another that which he has not himself, or teach that of which he has no knowledge. Who will deny that the creation of the animals is his doing? Are they not all the works of his wisdom, born and begotten of him? And as to the artists, do we not know that he only of them whom love inspires has the light of fame?

At the touch of love, Everyone becomes a poet.

Atheism is a disease of the soul before it becomes an error of understanding.

Assuredly he will love that most whose interests he regards as identical with his own, and in whose prosperity or adversity he believes his own fortunes to be involved.

As wolves love lambs so lovers love their loves.

Appearance tyrannizes over truth.

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.

Wonder is the only beginning of philosophy

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

Arithmetic is a kind of knowledge in which the best natures should be trained, and which must not be given up.

Artist or sage or ruler errs at the time when he is what his name implies.

As the builders say, the larger stones do not lie well without the lesser.

Are you not ashamed that you give your attention to acquiring as much money as possible, and similarly with reputation and honor, and give no attention or thought to truth and understanding and the perfection of your soul?

Any peace is better than any war

Any city however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, the other of the rich. These are at war with one another.

An accomplished one might not be found even among a hundred thousand men

An empty vessel makes the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers.

All learning is in the learner, not the teacher.

All who do evil and dishonorable things do them against their will.

All learning has an emotional base.

All knowledge, when separated from justice and virtue, is seen to be cunning and not wisdom.

All I really know is the extent of my own ignorance

All is flux, nothing stays still.

Age isn't easy for a good man if he's poor, nor will a bad man ever be cheerful with himself even if he's rich.

All enquiry and all learning is but recollection.

Above all things truth beareth away the victory.

A sensible man will remember that the eyes may be confused in two ways - by a change from light to darkness or from darkness to light; and he will recognize that the same thing happens to the soul.

A measure of such things which in any degree falls short of the whole truth is not fair measure; for nothing imperfect is the measure of anything, although persons are too apt to be contented and think that they need search no further.

A person's desires force him to something to reason and he berates himself and gets indignant with the part that forces him, and his spirit allies with reason as though reason and desire were at civil war.

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

A principle which has any soundness should stand firm not only just now, but always.

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

A life without investigation is not worth living.

A freeman ought not to be a slave in the acquisition of knowledge of any kind. Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.

A library of wisdom, is more precious than all wealth, and all things that are desirable cannot be compared to it. Whoever therefore claims to be zealous of truth, of happiness, of wisdom or knowledge, must become a lover of books.

A city whose future rulers are the least eager to rule will necessarily be the best governed and freest from strife, and the one with opposite rulers the worst.

Everything that deceives may be said to enchant.

The soul of man is immortal and imperishable.

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

God is always doing geometry.

The blame is his who chooses: God is blameless.

But if we are guided by me we shall believe that the soul is immortal and capable of enduring all extremes of good and evil, and so we shall hold ever to the upward way and pursue righteousness with wisdom always and ever.

Behold! human beings living in a underground den … Like ourselves … they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave.

And so with the objects of knowledge: these derive from the Good not only their power of being known, but their very being and reality; and Goodness is not the same thing as being, but even beyond being, surpassing it in dignity and power.

What I say is that ‘just’ or ‘right’ means nothing but what is in the interest of the stronger party.

Can we devise one of those lies—the kind which crop up as the occasion demands, which we were talking about not so long ago—so that with a single noble lie we can indocrinate the rulers themselves, preferably, but at least the rest of the community?

This was the end, Echekrates, of our friend; a man of whom we may say that of all whom we met at that time he was the wisest and justest and best.

Is that which is holy loved by the gods because it is holy, or is it holy because it is loved by the gods?

Socrates, he says, breaks the law by corrupting young men and not recognizing the gods that the city recognizes, but some other new deities.

Wealth is well known to be a great comforter.

I would fain grow old learning many things.

Virtue is relative to the actions and ages of each of us in all that we do.

The good is the beautiful.

We ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him is to become holy, just, and wise.

If particulars are to have meaning, there must be universals.

Our object in the construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class.

To go to the world below, having a soul which is like a vessel full of injustice, is the last and worst of all the evils.

We ought to esteem it of the greatest importance that the fictions which children first hear should be adapted in the most perfect manner to the promotion of virtue.

Whatever deceives men seems to produce a magical enchantment.

States are as the men, they grow out of human characters.

A state arises, as I conceive, out of the needs of mankind; no one is self-sufficing, but all of us have many wants.

When the mind is thinking it is talking to itself.

There is no such thing as a lovers' oath.

The highest reach of injustice is to be deemed just when you are not.

Injustice is censured because the censures are afraid of suffering, and not from any fear which they have of doing injustice.

We do not learn. And what we call learning is only a process of recollection.

The excessive increase of anything causes a reaction in the opposite direction.

Courage is a kind of salvation.

When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing more to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.

Any man may easily do harm, but not every man can do good to another.

And what, Socrates, is the food of the soul? Surely, I said, knowledge is the food of the soul.

Necessity... the mother of invention.

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

No one is a friend to his friend who does not love in return.

For the introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state; since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions.

To prefer evil to good is not in human nature; and when a man is compelled to choose one of two evils, no one will choose the greater when he might have the less.

The most virtuous are those who content themselves with being virtuous without seeking to appear so.

Apply yourself both now and in the next life. Without effort, you cannot be prosperous. Though the land be good, You cannot have an abundant crop without cultivation.

Philosophy is the highest music.

Hardly any human being is capable of pursuing two professions or two arts rightly.

Knowledge is true opinion.

No one ever teaches well who wants to teach, or governs well who wants to govern.

There must always remain something that is antagonistic to good.

Truth is the beginning of every good to the gods, and of every good to man.

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.

Science is nothing but perception.

Excess generally causes reaction, and produces a change in the opposite direction, whether it be in the seasons, or in individuals, or in governments.

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

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

This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.

Death is not the worst that can happen to men.

Wisdom alone is the science of other sciences.

For good nurture and education implant good constitutions.

Then not only an old man, but also a drunkard, becomes a second time a child.

The community which has neither poverty nor riches will always have the noblest principles.

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

Entire ignorance is not so terrible or extreme an evil, and is far from being the greatest of all. Too much cleverness and too much learning, accompanied with ill bringing-up, are far more fatal.

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

Your silence gives consent.

The wisest have the most authority.

Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men.

Wonder is the feeling of the philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.

Courage is knowing what not to fear.

The eyes of the soul of the multitudes are unable to endure the vision of the divine.

The most important part of education is proper training in the nursery.

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.

No law or ordinance is mightier than understanding.

Honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty.

There is no harm in repeating a good thing.

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

There are three classes of men.Lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain.

Those who intend on becoming great should love neither themselves nor their own things, but only what is just, whether it happens to be done by themselves or others.

Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.

How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state?

Twice and thrice over, as they say, good is it to repeat and review what is good.

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.

Life must be lived as play.

This City is what it is because our citizens are what they are.

Let parents bequeath to their children not riches, but the spirit of reverence.

Attention to health is life's greatest hindrance.

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

There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help, and what they cannot.

Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.

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.

The measure of a man is what he does with power.

Better a little which is well done, than a great deal imperfectly.

He who commits injustice is ever made more wretched than he who suffers it.

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

The greatest wealth is to live content with little.

Justice means minding one's own business and not meddling with other men's concerns.

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

The man who makes everything that leads to happiness depends upon himself, and not upon other men, has adopted the very best plan for living happily. This is the man of moderation, the man of manly character and of wisdom.

Justice in the life and conduct of the State is possible only as first it resides in the hearts and souls of the citizens.

If a man neglects education, he walks lame to the end of his life.

The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile.

Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil.

There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings 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.

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.

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

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

All the gold which is under or upon the earth is not enough to give in exchange for virtue.

Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.

Love is the joy of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the Gods.

Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.

Thinking: the talking of the soul with itself.

Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.

Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others.

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

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

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.

Knowledge without justice ought to be called cunning rather than wisdom.

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

People are like dirt. They can either nourish you and help you grow as a person or they can stunt your growth and make you wilt and die.

The beginning is the most important part of the work.

We are twice armed if we fight with faith.

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.

Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.

To love rightly is to love what is orderly and beautiful in an educated and disciplined way.

Platão

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