Quotes from Plato

Courage is a kind of salvation.

Someone might say: "Are you not ashamed, Socrates, to have followed the kind of occupation that has led to your being now in danger of death?" However, I should be right to reply to him: "You are wrong, sir, if you think that a man who is any good at all should take into account the risk of life or death; he should look to this only in his {33} actions, whether what he does is right or wrong, whether he is acting like a good or a bad man.

Handwriting is the shackle of the mind.

And things which are at their best are also least liable to be altered or discomposed; for example, when healthiest and strongest, the human frame is least liable to be affected by meats and drinks, and the plant which is in the fullest vigor also suffers least from winds or the heat of the sun or any similar causes. -Of course. -And will not the bravest and wisest soul be least confused or deranged by any external influence? -True.

Y si al que está en esas condiciones se le acerca alguien y le dice tranquilamente la verdad, esto es, que no hay en él razón alguna, que está privado de ella y que la razón es algo que no se puede adquirir sin entregarse completamente a la tarea de conseguirla, ¿crees que es fá­cil que haga caso quien está sometido a tantas malas in­fluencias?

quien durante tanto tiempo se ha ocupado de estos asuntos pueda exponerlas opiniones de los demás, pero no las suyas. -¿Pues qué? -dije yo-. ¿Te parece bien que hable uno de las cosas que no sabe como si las supiese?

La filosofía es la geometría de las ideas

For no government of men depends solely upon force; without some corruption of literature and morals—some appeal to the imagination of the masses—some pretence to the favour of heaven—some element of good giving power to evil, tyranny, even for a short time, cannot be maintained.

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy is when men are afraid of the light

If you're intelligent, you find a few sensible men much more frightening than a senseless crowd. - Agathon to Socrates

pedagogical

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

why should we not calmly and patiently review our own thoughts, and thoroughly examine and see what these appearances in us really are?

Everything that is responsible for creating something out of nothing is a kind of poetry; and so all the creations of every craft and profession are themselves a kind of poetry, and everyone who practices a craft is a poet.

I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know.

There are two wolves inside of you, Glaucon. Anyone can have an alpha-beta pair; rarer are the alpha-alpha and beta-beta ones. Most precious of all are those who have stepped out of the Cave; the philosopher-kings who may rule society: the sigma-alpha pair.

Porque temer la muerte, atenienses, no es otra cosa que creerse sabio sin serlo, y creer conocer lo que no se sabe. En efecto, nadie conoce la muerte, ni sabe si es el mayor de los bienes para el hombre. Sin embargo, se la teme, como si se supiese con certeza que es el mayor de todos los males. ¡Ah! ¿No es una ignorancia vergonzante creer conocer una cosa que no se conoce?

Then you have sufficient indication, he said, that any man whom you see resenting death was not a lover of wisdom but a lover of the body, and also a lover of wealth or of honors, either or both.

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 the human race, as I believe,—and then only will this our State have a possibility of life and behold the light of day.

For wherever a man's place is, whether the place which he has chosen or that in which he has been placed by a commander, there he ought to remain in the hour of danger; he should not think of death or of anything but of disgrace. And this, O men of Athens, is a true saying.

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

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.

Por lo mismo yo no temeré ni huiré nunca de males que no conozco y que son quizá verdaderos bienes; pero temeré y huiré siempre de males que sé con certeza que son verdaderos males.

So where power is in the hands of a savage and uneducated tyrant, anyone who is greatly his superior will doubtless be an object of fear to the ruler, and never able to be on terms of genuine friendship with him.