Plato Quotes

For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories.

Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.

To love rightly is to love what is orderly and beautiful in an educated and disciplined way.

A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers.

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

He who is not a good servant will not be a good master.

Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.

Science is nothing but perception.

Better a little which is well done, than a great deal imperfectly.

Love is a serious mental disease.

And what, Socrates, is the food of the soul? Surely, I said, knowledge is the food of the soul.

The greatest wealth is to live content with little.

No one ever teaches well who wants to teach, or governs well who wants to govern.

At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.

Death is not the worst that can happen to men.

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

He who commits injustice is ever made more wretched than he who suffers it.

All men are by nature equal, made all of the same earth by one Workman; and however we deceive ourselves, as dear unto God is the poor peasant as the mighty prince.

Democracy passes into despotism.

Democracy... is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder; and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.

People are like dirt. They can either nourish you and help you grow as a person or they can stunt your growth and make you wilt and die.

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

Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil.

Knowledge is true opinion.

It is a common saying, and in everybody's mouth, that life is but a sojourn. The learning and knowledge that we have, is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant.

There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain.

Life must be lived as play.