Quotes from Plato

There is no such thing as a lover's oath.

They certainly give very strange names to diseases

To the rulers of the state then, if to any, it belongs of right to use falsehood, to deceive either enemies or their own citizens, for the good of the state: and no one else may meddle with this privilege.

Too much attention to health is a hindrance to learning, to invention, and to studies of any kind, for we are always feeling suspicious shootings and swimmings in our heads, and we are prone to blame studies from them.

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.

Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.

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

Only the dead have seen the end of war.

The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.

Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.

According to Greek mythology, humans were originally created with four arms, four legs and a head with two faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves.

The heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.

I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.

Never discourage anyone...who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.

Love is a serious mental disease.

One of the penalties of refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.

The measure of a man is what he does with power.

Ignorance, the root and stem of every evil.

If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.

I'm trying to think, don't confuse me with facts.

and when one of them meets the other half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy and one will not be out of the other's sight, as I may say, even for a moment...

Those who tell the stories rule society.

There is truth in wine and children

Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.