Quotes from Plato

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

Sócrates, cita atribuida por Platón Es peor cometer una injusticia que padecerla porque quien la comete se convierte en injusto y quien la padece no.

Y lo que nos lleva al recuerdo de la desgracia y a las lamentaciones, sin saciarse nunca de ellas, ¿no diremos que es irracional y perezoso y allegado de la cobardía.

I, on the other hand, have a convincing witness that I speak the truth, my poverty.

El alma es la que debe ocupar nuestros primeros cuidados, y los más asiduos, si queremos que la cabeza y el cuerpo entero estén en buen estado.

La práctica del bien; he aquí precisamente cómo defino la sabiduría.

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.

When a person supposes that he knows, and does not know; this appears to be the great source of all the errors of the intellect.

No estoy distante de definir la sabiduría como el conocimiento de sí mismo, y de hecho soy de la misma opinión del que colocó en el templo de Delfos una inscripción de este género: «Conócete a ti mismo».

Then I showed again, not in words but in action, that, if it were not rather vulgar to [d]say so, death is something I couldn't care less about, but that my whole concern is not to do anything unjust or impious.

Son, indiscutiblemente, difíciles de desenmascarar, pues ni siquiera es posible hacerles subir a este estrado para que den la cara y puedan ser interrogados, por lo que me veo obligado, como vulgarmente se dice, a batirme contra las sombras y a refutar sus argumentos sin que nadie me replique.

Self-conquest is the greatest of victories and vice versa

Lo mío es obedecer a la ley y abogar por mi causa.

There are two things a person should never be angry at: what they can help, and what they cannot.

For it is clear, on the one hand, that have you been familiar with these things for a long time—whatever you wish to signify when you utter being—and, before this we used to believe it, but now we have been perplexed.

in a family there may be several brothers, and the bad may be a majority; and when the bad majority conquer the good minority, the family are worse than themselves.

It looks, Socrates, as though I didn't know what I was talking about then.

But why, my dear Crito, should we care about the opinion of the many? Good men, and they are the only persons who are worth considering, will think of these things truly as they occurred.

In my opinion we must first of all make the following distinction: what is it that always is and has no becoming, and what on the other hand becomes continually and never is? The one comprehensible by the mind with reasoning, the other conjectured by opinion with irrational sensation, coming to be and passing away, but never really being.

You may feel irritated at being suddenly awakened when you are caught napping; and you may think that if you were to strike me dead as you easily might, then you would sleep on for the remainder of your lives, unless God in his care of you gives you another gadfly.

When ideas are manipulated for personal ends, for class or group interests, the name for this is sophistry.

Everyone should think it a disgrace and unworthy of a gentleman, if any citizen devotes the whole of any night to sleep.

If you do not take an interest in the affairs of your government, then you are doomed to live under the rule of fools.

What being is there that does not desire happiness? Well then, since all of us desire happiness, how can we be happy? – that is the next question.