Top 200 Plato Quotes (2024 Update)
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151. “Then not he who does evil, but he who does good, is temperate? Yes, he said; and you, friend, would agree. No matter whether I should or not; just now, not what I think, but what you are saying, is the point at issue. Well, he answered; I mean to say, that he who does evil, and not good, is not temperate; and that he is temperate who does good, and not evil: for temperance I define in plain words to be the doing of good actions.”

— Plato

152. “As being is to becoming, so is pure intellect to opinion. And as intellect is to opinion, so is science to belief, and understanding to the perception of shadows.”

— Plato

153. “Because you seem not to be aware that any one who has an intellectual affinity to Socrates and enters into conversation with him is liable to be drawn into an argument; and whatever subject he may start, he will be continually carried round and round by him, until at last he finds that he has to give an account both of his present and past life; and when he is once entangled, Socrates will not let him go until he has completely and thoroughly sifted him.”

— Plato

154. “SOCRATES: Then hear me, Gorgias, for I am quite sure that if there ever was a man who entered on the discussion of a matter from a pure love of knowing the truth, I am such a one, and I should say the same of you. GORGIAS: What is coming, Socrates?”

— Plato

155. “Once you have the means of life, you must practice virtue.”

— Plato

156. “But then, I said, speaking the truth and paying your debts is not a correct definition of justice. Quite correct, Socrates, if Simonides is to be believed, said Polemarchus interposing. I.”

— Plato

157. “Well, although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is, – for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows; I neither know nor think that I know.”

— Plato

158. “Socrates is an evil-doer, and a curious person, who searches into things under the earth and in heaven, and he makes the worse appear the better cause; and he teaches the aforesaid doctrines to others.”

— Plato

159. “In the course of the argument Socrates remarks that the controversial nature of morals and religion arises out of the difficulty of verifying them.”

— Plato

160. “But I have no time for such things; and the reason, my friend, is this. I am still unable, as the Delphic inscription orders, to know myself; and it really seems to be ridiculous to look into other things before I have understood that.”

— Plato

161. “When my sons are grown up, I would ask you, O my friends, to punish them; and I would have you trouble them, as I have troubled you, if they seem to care about riches, or anything, more than about virtue; or if they pretend to be something when they are really nothing, – then reprove them, as I have reproved you, for not caring about that for which they ought to care, and thinking that they are something when they are really nothing.”

— Plato

162. “It is not Love absolutely that is good or praiseworthy, but only that Love which impels meant to love aright.”

— Plato

163. “Of old the saying, “Nothing too much,” appeared to be, and really was, well said. For he whose happiness rests with himself, if possible, wholly, and if not, as far as is possible, – who is not hanging in suspense on other men, or changing with the vicissitude of their fortune, – has his life ordered for the best.”

— Plato

164. “To them, therefore, I assign in my speech the first place, and the second to those who fought and conquered in the sea fights at Salamis and Artemisium; for of them, too, one might have many things to say – of the assaults which they endured by sea and land, and how they repelled them.”

— Plato

165. “Fanny Price leaves the poverty of her Portsmouth home to be brought up among the family of her.”

— Plato

166. “Mais on ne saurait mieux le faire qu’avec une.”

— Plato

167. “Any man whom you see resenting death was not a lover of wisdom but a lover of the body.”

— Plato

168. “Having grasped this principle, it reverses itself and, keeping hold of what follow from it, comes down to a conclusion, making no use of anything visible at all, but only of forms themselves, moving on through forms to forms, and ending in forms.”

— Plato

169. “This is the truth of the matter, men of Athens: wherever a man has taken a position that he believes to be best, or has been placed by his commander, there he must I think remain and face danger, without a thought for death or anything else, rather than disgrace.”

— Plato

170. “Nothing will injure me, not Meletus nor yet Anytus – they cannot, for a bad man is not permitted to injure a better than himself.”

— Plato

171. “And is not shrewdness a quickness or cleverness of the soul, and not a quietness?”

— Plato

172. “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, – nor.”

— Plato

173. “ION: Why, Socrates, the reason is, that my countrymen, the Ephesians, are the servants and soldiers of Athens, and do not need a general; and you and Sparta are not likely to have me, for you think that you have enough generals of your own.”

— Plato

174. “I found that the men most in repute were all but the most foolish; and that others less esteemed were really wiser and better.”

— Plato

175. “You might easily be annoyed with me as people are when they are aroused from a doze, and strike out at me;.”

— Plato

176. “Virtue is free, and as a man honours or dishonours her he will have more or less of her; the responsibility is with the chooser – God is justified.”

— Plato

177. “SOCRATES: I wish you would frankly tell me, Ion, what I am going to ask of you: When you produce the greatest effect upon the audience in the recitation of some striking passage, such as the apparition of Odysseus leaping forth on the floor, recognized by the suitors and casting his arrows at his feet, or the description of Achilles rushing at Hector, or the sorrows of Andromache, Hecuba, or Priam, – are you in your right mind?”

— Plato

178. “It looks, Socrates, as though I didn’t know what I was talking about then.”

— Plato

179. “You’re not thinking straight, sir, if you think that a man who’s any use at all should give any opposing weight to the risk of living or dying, instead of looking to this alone whenever he does anything: whether his actions are just or unjust, the deeds of a good or bad man.”

— Plato

180. “People’s souls give up much more easily in hard study than in physical training, since the pain – being peculiar to them and not shared with their body – is more their own.”

— Plato

181. “The unjust man enjoys life better than the just.” book 2.”

— Plato

182. “But can that which does not exist have anything pertaining or belonging to it? Of course not. Then the one has no name, nor is there any description or knowledge or perception or opinion of it... And it is neither named nor described nor thought of nor known, nor does any existing thing perceive it.”

— Plato

183. “The fairest music is that which delights the best and best educated.”

— Plato

184. “But I cannot advise that we remain as we are. And if any one laughs at us for going to school at our age, I would quote to them the authority of Homer, who says, that ‘Modesty is not good for a needy man.’ Let us then, regardless of what may be said of us, make the education of the youths our own education.”

— Plato

185. “This early dialogue features the charismatic young politician Alcibiades in conversation with Socrates.”

— Plato

186. “And from Eretria they went to Marathon with a like intention, expecting to bind the Athenians in the same yoke of necessity in which they had bound the Eretrians. Having effected one-half of their purpose, they were in the act of attempting the other, and none of the Hellenes dared to assist either the Eretrians or the Athenians, except the Lacedaemonians, and they arrived a day too late for the battle;.”

— Plato

187. “Since there has been shown to be false speech and false opinion, there may be imitations of real existences, and out of this condition of the mind an art of deception may arise.”

— Plato

188. “For the rhapsode ought to interpret the mind of the poet to his hearers, but how can he interpret him well unless he knows what he means?”

— Plato

189. “No science or art considers or enjoins the interest of the stronger or superior, but only the interest of the subject and weaker.”

— Plato

190. “O that we were wise, Ion, and that you could truly call us so; but you rhapsodes and actors, and the poets whose verses you sing, are wise; whereas I am a common man, who only speaks the truth. For consider what a very commonplace and trivial things this which I have said – a thing which any man might say: that when a man has acquired a knowledge of a whole art, the enquiry into good and bad is one and the same.”

— Plato

191. “After a moment’s pause, in which he made a real manly effort to think, he said: My opinion is, Socrates, that temperance makes a man ashamed or modest, and that temperance is the same as modesty. Very good, I said; and did you not admit, just now, that temperance is noble?”

— Plato

192. “I was attached to this city by the god – though it seems a ridiculous thing to say – as upon a great and noble horse which was somewhat sluggish because of its size and needed to be stirred up by a kind of gadfly. It is to fulfill some such function that I believe the god has placed me in the city. I never cease to rouse each and every one of you, to persuade and reproach you all day long and everywhere I find myself in your company.”

— Plato

193. “After a while the desire of self-preservation gathered them into cities; but when they were gathered together, having no art of government, they evil intreated one another, and were again in process of dispersion and destruction. Zeus feared that the entire race would be exterminated, and so he sent Hermes to them, bearing reverence and justice to be the ordering principles of cities and the bonds of friendship and conciliation.”

— Plato

194. “Wenn etwas irgendwie wird, oder irgend etwas leidet: so wird es nicht, weil es ein Werdendes ist, sondern weil es wird ist es ein Werdendes; noch weil es ein Leidendes ist leidet es; sondern weil es leidet, ist es ein Leidendes.”

— Plato

195. “I was hoping that you would instruct me in the nature of piety and impiety; and then I might have cleared myself of Meletus and his indictment. I would have told him that I had been enlightened by Euthyphro, and had given up rash innovations and speculations, in which I indulged only through ignorance, and that now I am about to lead a better life.”

— Plato

196. “And is it not best to understand what is said, whether at the writing-master’s or the music-master’s, or anywhere else, not as quietly as possible, but as quickly as possible? Yes.”

— Plato

197. “All these were lovers and emulators and disciples of the culture of the Lacedaemonians, and any one may perceive that their wisdom was of this character; consisting of short memorable sentences, which they severally uttered. And they met together and dedicated in the temple of Apollo at Delphi, as the first-fruits of their wisdom, the far-famed inscriptions, which are in all men’s mouths – ‘Know thyself,’ and ‘Nothing too much.”

— Plato

198. “And I assert that those men are the fathers not only of ourselves, but of our liberties and of the liberties of all who are on the continent, for that was the action to which the Hellenes looked back when they ventured to fight for their own safety in the battles which ensued: they became disciples of the men of Marathon.”

— Plato

199. “Shall this be the manner in which I am to distribute justice and reverence among men, or shall I give them to all?’ ‘To all,’ said Zeus; ‘I should like them all to have a share; for cities cannot exist, if a few only share in the virtues, as in the arts. And further, make a law by my order, that he who has no part in reverence and justice shall be put to death, for he is a plague of the state.”

— Plato

200. “The very good and the very wicked are both quite rare, and that most men are between those extremes.”

— Plato