Quotes from Plato

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

The first and best victory is to conquer self

For 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.

And so, when a person meets the half that is his very own, whatever his orientation, whether it's to young men or not, then something wonderful happens: the two are struck from their senses by love, by a sense of belonging to one another, and by desire, and they don't want to be separated from one another, not even for a moment.

True friendship can exist only between equals.

To be afraid of death is only another form of thinking that one is wise when one is not; it is to think that one knows what one does not know. No one knows with regard to death wheather it is not really the greatest blessing that can happen to man; but people dread it as though they were certain it is the greatest evil. -The Last Days of Socrates

Love' is the name for our pursuit of wholeness, for our desire to be complete.

Man is a being in search of meaning.

How could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?

Books are immortal sons defying their sires.

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.

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

Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion has no hold on the mind. Therefore do not use compulsion, but let early education be a sort of amusement; you will then be better able to discover the child's natural bent.

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

No human thing is of serious importance.

The society we have described can never grow into a reality or see the light of day, and there will be no end to the troubles of states, or indeed, my dear Glaucon, of humanity itself, till philosophers become rulers 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.

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

The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death.

The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.

He whom loves touches not walks in darkness.

All I really know is the extent of my own ignorance

A dog has the soul of a philosopher.

what if the man could see Beauty Itself, pure, unalloyed, stripped of mortality, and all its pollution, stains, and vanities, unchanging, divine,...the man becoming in that communion, the friend of God, himself immortal;...would that be a life to disregard?

He was a wise man who invented God.