Quotes by Plato

About Plato:

Plato is widely considered the most pivotal figure in the development of philosophy, especially the Western tradition. Unlike nearly all of his philosophical contemporaries, Plato's entire oeuvre is believed to have survived intact for over 2500 years, and he is arguably one of the greatest, if not the greatest, writer in the entire Western canon.
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Necessity... the mother of invention.

Plato

This City is what it is because our citizens are what they are.

Plato

He was a wise man who invented beer.

Plato

Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.

Plato

Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another.

Plato

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.

Plato

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.

Plato

All the gold which is under or upon the earth is not enough to give in exchange for virtue.

Plato

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

Plato

Man is a wingless animal with two feet and flat nails.

Plato

The most virtuous are those who content themselves with being virtuous without seeking to appear so.

Plato

All things will be produced in superior quantity and quality, and with greater ease, when each man works at a single occupation, in accordance with his natural gifts, and at the right moment, without meddling with anything else.

Plato

Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil.

Plato

The gods' service is tolerable, man's intolerable.

Plato

How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state?

Plato

No law or ordinance is mightier than understanding.

Plato

As the builders say, the larger stones do not lie well without the lesser.

Plato

This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.

Plato

Honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty.

Plato

The excessive increase of anything causes a reaction in the opposite direction.

Plato

It is clear to everyone that astronomy at all events compels the soul to look upwards, and draws it from the things of this world to the other.

Plato

Author Bio

  • NamePlato
  • DescriptionClassical Greek philosopher
  • AliasesPlaton
  • Born427 BCE
  • Died347 BCE
  • CountryClassical Athens
  • ProfessionPhilosopher