Plato Quotes

“And the quality of good judgement is clearly a form of knowledge and skill, as it is because of knowledge and not because of ignorance that we judge well.”

“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.”

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

“Hereditary honors are a noble and a splendid treasure to descendants.”

“Experience proves that anyone who has studied geometry is infinitely quicker to grasp difficult subjects than one who has not.”

“[The Cretans have] more wit than words.”

“He who has knowledge of the just and the good and beautiful ... will not, when in earnest, write them in ink.”

“Democracy leads to anarchy, which is mob rule.”

“To him who disgraces his family life is no life, and to such a person there is no one a friend, neither while living nor when dead.”

“Art has no end but its own perfection.”

“The wisdom of men is worth little or nothing.”

“What the expression is intended to mean, I think, is that there is a better and a worse element in the character of each individual, and that when the naturally better element controls the worse then the man is said to be "master of himself", as a term of praise. But when - as a result of bad upbringing or bad company one s better element is overpowered by the numerical superiority of one s worse impulses, then one is criticized for not being master of oneself and for lack of self control.”

“The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.”

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

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

“Is virtue something that can be taught?”

“No one knows whether death may not be the greatest good that can happen to man.”

“Wealth does not bring excellence, but that wealth comes from excellence.”

“The fear of death is indeed the pretence of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being the appearance of knowing the unknown.”

“To do injustice is more disgraceful than to suffer it.”

“Arrogance is ever accompanied by folly.”

“They (the poets) are to us in a manner the fathers and authors of the wisdom.”

“Let us affirm what seems to be the truth, that, whether one is or is not, one and the others in relation to themselves and one another, all of them, in every way, are and are not, and appear to be and appear not to be.”

“You must base the Wisdom on Love.”

“A grateful mind is a great mind which eventually attracts to itself great things.”