Plato (born 428/427 BCE, Athens, Greece – died 348/347, Athens) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He was the founder of the Platonist school of thought and of the Academy – the first institution of higher learning in the Western world, best known as the author of philosophical works of unparalleled influence. Plato was a student of Socrates and a teacher of Aristotle.
If you do not take an interest in the affairs of your government, then you are doomed to live under the rule of fools.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.For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories.The greatest wealth is to live content with little.Excellence is not a gift, but a skill that takes practice. We do not act rightly because we are excellent, in fact we achieve excellence by acting rightly.Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.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.Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.There is in every one of us, even those who seem to be most moderate, a type of desire that is terrible, wild, and lawless.Thinking – the talking of the soul with itself.If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.The beginning is the most important part of the work.There is no harm in repeating a good thing.Only the dead have seen the end of war.You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth.Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain.Truth is the beginning of every good to the gods, and of every good to man.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.Knowledge without justice ought to be called cunning rather than wisdom.Wealth, and poverty; the one is the parent of luxury and indolence, and the other of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent.The measure of a man is what he does with power.Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.Reality is created by the mind, we can change our reality by changing our mind.
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.
Plato
When two friends, like you and me, are in the mood to chat, we have to go about it in a gentler and more dialectical way. By ‘more dialectical’, I mean not only that we give real responses, but that we base our responses solely on what the interlocutor admits that he himself knows.
Plato
The excessive increase of anything causes a reaction in the opposite direction.The heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.An empty vessel makes the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers.When you feel grateful, you become great, and eventually attract great things.Music is a moral law. It gives a soul to the Universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety and life to everythingLove is a serious mental disease.Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.The right question is usually more important than the right answer.If a man neglects education, he walks lame to the end of his life.There is truth in wine and children.All men are by nature equal, made all of the same earth by one workman.Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others.Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.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.Courage is knowing what not to fear.You should not honor men more than truth.Poets utter great and wise things which they themselves do not understand.The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future in life.
The untrained mind keeps up a running commentary, labelling everything, judging everything. Best to ignore that commentary. Don’t argue or resist, just ignore. Deprived of attention and interest, this voice gets quieter and quieter and eventually just shuts up.
Plato
Someday, in the distant future, our grand-children' s grand-children will develop a new equivalent of our classrooms. They will spend many hours in front of boxes with fires glowing within. May they have the wisdom to know the difference between light and knowledge.
Plato
Poverty doesn’t come because of the decrease of wealth but because of the increase of desires.Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.No man should bring children into the world who is unwilling to persevere to the end in their nature and education.Don't force your children into your ways, for they were created for a time different from your own.Ideas are the source of all things.Excess of liberty, whether it lies in state or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery.Love is born into every human being; it calls back the halves of our original nature together; it tries to make one out of two and heal the wound of human nature.The madness of love is the greatest of heaven’s blessings.Everything that deceives may be said to enchant.False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.To love rightly is to love what is orderly and beautiful in an educated and disciplined way.We are twice armed if we fight with faith.And what, Socrates, is the food of the soul? Surely, I said, knowledge is the food of the soul.A library of wisdom, is more precious than all wealth, and all things that are desirable cannot be compared to it. Whoever therefore claims to be zealous of truth, of happiness, of wisdom or knowledge, must become a lover of books.Writing is the geometry of the soul.The first and the best victory is to conquer self.
The souls of people, on their way to Earth-life, pass through a room full of lights; each takes a taper - often only a spark - to guide it in the dim country of this world. But some souls, by rare fortune, are detained longer - have time to grasp a handful of tapers, which they weave into a torch. These are the torch-bearers of humanity - its poets, seers and saints, who lead and lift the race out of darkness, toward the light. They are the law-givers and saviors, the light-bringers, way-showers and truth-tellers, and without them, humanity would lose its way in the dark.
Plato
Perfect wisdom has four parts: Wisdom, the principle of doing things aright. Justice, the principle of doing things equally in public and private. Fortitude, the principle of not fleeing danger, but meeting it. Temperance, the principle of subduing desires and living moderately.
