Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)
Greek author & philosopher in Athens

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

Death is not the worst that can happen to men.

 

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

 

Ignorance, the root and the stem of every evil.

 

Plato

-         More quotations on: [Ignorance]

 

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

-         More quotations on: [Laws]

 

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.

 

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

Plato

- More quotations on: [Progress]

 

No human thing is of serious importance.

 

Only the dead have seen the end of war.

 

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

 

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

 

They certainly give very strange names to diseases.

 

Thinking is the talking of the soul with itself.

 

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.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Plato, Dialogues, Apology

- More quotations on: [Evil]

 

You cannot conceive the many without the one.

 

Plato, Dialogues, Parmenides

 

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

 

Plato, Dialogues, Phaedo

- More quotations on: [Lies]

 

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

 

Plato, Dialogues, Phaedo

- More quotations on: [Death]

 

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, Dialogues, Phaedo

 

Friends have all things in common.

 

Plato, Dialogues, Phaedrus

- More quotations on: [Friendship]

 

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

 

Plato, Dialogues, Theatetus

 

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, Dialogues, Theatetus

- More quotations on: [Opinions]

 

Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind's eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye; and he who remembers this when he sees any one whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to laugh; he will first ask whether that soul of man has come out of the brighter light, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness to the day is dazzled by excess of light.

 

Plato, The Republic

- More quotations on: [Light]

 

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

 

Plato, The Republic

 

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

 

Plato, The Republic

- More quotations on: [Body]

 

Everything that deceives may be said to enchant.

 

Plato, The Republic

 

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, The Republic

- More quotations on: [Age]

 

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

 

Plato, The Republic

- More quotations on: [Mathematics]

 

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

 

Plato, The Republic

 

Necessity, who is the mother of invention.

 

Plato, The Republic

 

The beginning is the most important part of the work.

 

Plato, The Republic

 

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

 

Plato, The Republic

- More quotations on: [Education]

 

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, The Republic

 

The soul of man is immortal and imperishable.

 

Plato, The Republic

- More quotations on: [Immortality]

 

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

 

Plato, The Republic

 

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

 

Plato, The Republic

- More quotations on: [Money] [Poverty] [Wealth]

 

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

 

Plato, The Republic

- More quotations on: [Taxes]