Plato

“Philebus”

“for philosophy, Socrates, if pursued in moderation and at the proper age, is an elegant accomplishment, but too much philosophy is the ruin of human life.”

“Excess of liberty, whether it lies in state or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery.”

“True friendship can exist only between equals.”

“By such reflections and by the continuance in them of a divine nature, th qualities which we have described grew and increased among them; but when the divine portion began to fade away, and became diluted too often and too much with the mortal admixture, and the human nature got the upper hand, they then, being unable to bear their fortune, behaved unseemly, and to him who had an eye to see grew visibly debased, for they were losing the fairest of their precious gifts; but to those who had no eye to see the true happiness, they appeared glorious and blessed at the very time when they were full of avarice and unrighteous power. Zeus, the god of gods, who rules according to law, and is able to see into such things, perceiving that an honourable race was in a woeful plight, and wanting to inflict punishment on them, that they might be chastened and improve, collected all the gods into their most holy habitation, whch being placed in the centre of the world, beholds all created things. And when he had called them together, he spake as follows --”

“Always be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle.”

“He who refuses to rule is liable to be ruled by one who is worse than himself.”

“Are not they temperate from a kind of intemperance?”

“Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.”

“Les amants, en effet, regrettent le bien qu’ilsont fait, une fois que leur désir est éteint. Ceux qui n’ont pas d’amour, au contraire, n’ontjamais occasion seyante au repentir, car ce n’est point par contrainte, mais librement, commes’ils s’occupaient excellemment des biens de leurs demeures, qu’ils font, dans la mesure deleurs moyens, du bien à leurs amis. Les amants considèrent en outre, et les dommages queleur amour fit à leurs intérêts et les largesses qu’ils ont dû consentir ; puis, en y ajoutant lapeine qu’ils ont eue, ils pensent depuis longtemps avoir déjà payé à leurs aimés le juste prixdes faveurs obtenues. Par contre, ceux qui ne sont pas épris ne peuvent, ni prétexter lesaffaires négligées par amour, ni mettre en ligne de compte les souffrances passées, ni alléguerles différends familiaux qu’ils ont eus. Exempts de tous ces maux, il ne leur reste plus qu’às’empresser de mettre en acte tout ce qu’ils croient devoir leur donner du plaisir.”

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

“For the fact is thatneither the grammarian nor any other person of skill ever makes a mistakein so far as he is what his name implies; they none of them err unlesstheir skill fails them, and then they cease to be skilled artists. Noartist or sage or ruler errs at the time when he is what his name implies;though he is commonly said to err.”

“You take the words in the sense which is most damaging to the argument.”

“Of course, he said, he who is of a certain nature, is like those who areof a certain nature; he who is not, not.”

“Love is the joy of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the Gods.”

“Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses.”

“The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”

“Have you ever sensed that our soul is immortal and never dies?”

“‎Love is a madness produced by an unsatisfiable rational desire to understand the ultimate truth about the world.”

“Courage is a kind of salvation. Courage is knowing what not to fear.”

“Knowledge is the food of the soul.”

“Must not all things at last be swallowed up in Death?”

“He could not harm me, for I do not think it is permitted that a better man be harmed by a worse”

“I really do not know, Socrates, how to express what I mean. For somehow or other our arguments, on whatever ground we rest them, seem to turn round and walk away from us.”

“[T]hose who practice philosophy in the right way are in training for dying and they fear death least of all men.”

“We are like people looking for something they have in their hands all the time; we're looking in all directions except at the thing we want, which is probably why we haven't found it.”

“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.”

“And if the truth of all things that are is always in our soul, then the soul must be immortal, so you should take courage and whatever you do not happen to know, that is to remember, at present, you must endeavour to discover and recollect...I cannot swear to everything I have said in this argument – but one thing I am ready to fight for in word and deed, that we shall be better, braver and more active men if we believe it right to look for what we do not know, than if we think we cannot discover it and have no duty to seek it.”

“Eros guides us to Logos.”

“...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...”

“„Ich weiß, dass ich nicht weiß“.”

“To the degree that I cease to persue my deepest passions, I will gradually be controlled by my deepest fears.”

“The greatest wealth is to live content with little.”

“Do you desire to be wholly one; always day and night in one another's company? For if this is what you desire, I am ready to melt and fuse you together, so that being two you shall become one, and while you live a common life as if you were a single man, and after your death in the world below still be one departed soul, instead of two....”

“La peor prisión es un corazón cerrado”

“I thought to myself: I am wiser than this man; neither of us probably knows anything that is really good, but he thinks he has knowledge, when he has not, while I, having no knowledge, do not think I have.”

“For to fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise without really being wise, for it is to think that we know what we do not know. For no one knows whether death may not be the greatest good that can happen to man.”

“Socrates: This man, on one hand, believes that he knows something, while not knowing [anything]. On the other hand, I – equally ignorant – do not believe [that I know anything].”

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

“To conquer oneself is the best and noblest victory; to be vanquished by one's own nature is the worst and most ignoble defeat.”

“A sensible man will remember that the eyes may be confused in two ways - by a change from light to darkness or from darkness to light; and he will recognise that the same thing happens to the soul.”

“What of his beard? Are you not of Homer's opinion, who says Youth is most charming when the beard first appears?”

“There is a constant suspicion that headache and giddiness are to be ascribed to philosophy, and hence all practising or making trial of virtue in the higher sense is absolutely stopped; for a man is always fancying that he is being made ill, and is in constant anxiety about the state of his body.”

“The beginning is the most important part of any work.”

“But the truth is, O men of Athens, that God only is wise; and by his answer he intends to show that the wisdom of men is worth little or nothing; he is not speaking of Socrates, he is only using my name by way of illustration, as if he said, He, O men, is the wisest, who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing.”

“We do not learn, and that what we call learning is only a process of recollection.”

“Virtue is the desire of things honourable and the power of attaining them.”

“At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.”

“I would teach children music, physics, and philosophy; but most importantly music, for the patterns in music and all the arts are the keys to learning”

“A dog has the soul of a philosopher.”