47 Plato Quotes

Plato, one of history's most influential philosophers, has left behind a wealth of wisdom that continues to inspire and challenge us today. His thoughts on ethics, politics, love, and the nature of reality remain pertinent in our modern world. In this post, we've curated a collection of the top 47 Plato quotes. These timeless gems offer a glimpse into his profound understanding of the human condition and invite us to reflect on our own lives and beliefs. Join us on this philosophical journey as we explore the enduring legacy of Plato's thought through his most memorable and poignant words.

1. “Only a philosopher's mind grows wings, since its memory always keeps it as close as possible to those realities by being close to which the gods are divine.” - Plato

2. “…money and honour have no attraction for them; good men do not wish to be openly demanding payment for governing and so to get the name of hirelings, nor by secretly helping themselves out of the public revenues to get the name of thieves. And not being ambitious they do not care about honour. Wherefore necessity must be laid upon them, and they must be induced to serve from the fear of punishment. And this, as I imagine, is the reason why the forwardness to take office, instead of waiting to be compelled, has been deemed dishonourable. Now the worst part of the punishment is that he who refuses to rule is liable to be ruled by one who is worse than himself. And the fear of this, as I conceive, induces the good to take office, not because they would, but because they cannot help — not under the idea that they are going to have any benefit or enjoyment themselves, but as a necessity, and because they are not able to commit the task of ruling to any one who is better than themselves, or indeed as good. For there is reason to think that if a city were composed entirely of good men, then to avoid office would be as much an object of contention as to obtain office is at present…” - Socrates

3. “Plato's dialogues bear at least some similarities to the classical plays.” - Benjamin Jowett

4. “If they [Plato and Aristotle] wrote about politics it was as if to lay down rules for a madhouse.And if they pretended to treat it as something really important it was because they knew that the madmen they were talking to believed themselves to be kings and emperors. They humoured these beliefs in order to calm down their madness with as little harm as possible.” - Blaise Pascal

5. “The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.” - Alfred North Whitehead

6. “No human thing is of serious importance.” - Plato

7. “Reading Plato should be easy; understanding Plato can be difficult.” - Robin Waterfield

8. “I'm sure that if Plato hadn't been against music with a strong sexual beat, Bloom would have kept quiet about rock-and-roll.” - E.D. Hirsch

9. “Alcohol makes other people less tedious, and food less bland, and can help provide what the Greeks called entheos, or the slight buzz of inspiration when reading or writing. The only worthwhile miracle in the New Testament—the transmutation of water into wine during the wedding at Cana—is a tribute to the persistence of Hellenism in an otherwise austere Judaea. The same applies to the seder at Passover, which is obviously modeled on the Platonic symposium: questions are asked (especially of the young) while wine is circulated. No better form of sodality has ever been devised: at Oxford one was positively expected to take wine during tutorials. The tongue must be untied. It's not a coincidence that Omar Khayyam, rebuking and ridiculing the stone-faced Iranian mullahs of his time, pointed to the value of the grape as a mockery of their joyless and sterile regime. Visiting today's Iran, I was delighted to find that citizens made a point of defying the clerical ban on booze, keeping it in their homes for visitors even if they didn't particularly take to it themselves, and bootlegging it with great brio and ingenuity. These small revolutions affirm the human.” - Christopher Hitchens

10. “Plato says that the unexamined life is not worth living. But what if the examined life turns out to be a clunker as well?” - Kurt Vonnegut

11. “I think that modern physics has definitely decided in favor of Plato. In fact the smallest units of matter are not physical objects in the ordinary sense; they are forms, ideas which can be expressed unambiguously only in mathematical language.” - Werner Heisenberg

12. “I hope it is not necessary for me to stress the platonic nature of our relationship- not platonic in the purest sense, there was no philosophical discourse, but we certainly didn't fuck, which is usually what people mean by platonic; which I bet would really piss Plato off, that for all his thinking and chatting his name has become an adjective for describing sexless trysts.” - Russell Brand

13. “The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future life” - Plato

14. “Everything that deceives may be said to enchant.” - Plato

15. “The philosopher whose dealings are with divine order himself acquires the characteristics of order and divinity.” - Plato

16. “Laws of nature have no physical properties of mass /energy. They are platonic truths in transcendent realm that create & govern the Universe.” - Deepak Chopra

17. “Und nicht wahr, wenn man ihn zwänge, in das Licht selbst zu sehen, so würde er Schmerzen an den Augen haben, davonlaufen und sich wieder jenen Schattengegenständen zuwenden, die er ansehen kann, und würde dabei bleiben, diese wären wirklich deutlicher als die, welche er gezeigt bekam?And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away to take and take in the objects of vision which he can see, and which he will conceive to be in reality clearer than the things which are now being shown to him?” - Plato

18. “And now - Plato's words mock me in the shadows on the ledge behind the flames: '...the men of the cave would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes.” - Daniel Keyes

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

20. “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.” - Plato

21. “I am bold to Say that neither you nor I, will live to See the Course which 'the Wonders of the Times' will take. Many Years, and perhaps Centuries must pass, before the current will acquire a Settled direction... yet Platonic, Pythagoric, Hindoo, and cabalistic Christianity, which is Catholic Christianity, and which has prevailed for 1,500 years, has received a mortal wound, of which the monster must finally die. Yet so strong is his constitution, that he may endure for centuries before he expires.{Letter to Thomas Jefferson, July 16 1814}” - John Adams

22. “Manlius ... took care in his invitations, actively sought to exclude from his circle crude and vulgar men like Caius Valerius. But they were all around; it was Manlius who lived in a dream world, and his bubble of civility was becoming smaller and smaller. Caius Valerius, powerful member of a powerful family, had never even heard of Plato. A hundred, even fifty years before, such an absurdity would have been inconceivable. Now it was surprising if such a man did know anything of philosophy, and even if it was explained, he would not wish to understand.” - Iain Pears

23. “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.” - Plato

24. “No mi kršćani upućeni smo po središtu našega Creda - 'mučen pod Poncijem Pilatom' - u povijest u kojoj je bilo razapinjanja i mučenja, u kojoj se plakalo i tako rijetko ljubilo. I nikakav od povijesti udaljeni mit, nikakav Platonovi idejni Bog, nikakva gnostička soteriologija i nikakav apstraktni govor o povijesnosti naše egzistencije ne mogu nam vratiti onu nedužnost koju smo u toj povijesti izgubili.” - Johann Baptist Metz

25. “Diogenes, filthily attired, paced across the splendid carpets in Plato's dwelling. Thus, said he, do I trample on the pride of Plato. Yes, Plato replied, but only with another kind of pride.” - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

26. “[O]ther thinkers have philosophised since the time of Plato, but that does not destroy the interest and beauty of his philosophy” - Frederick Charles Copleston

27. “Being in love, as both Plato and David Bowie have pointed out, is horrible.” - Stefano Benni

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

29. “No civilization, including Plato's, has ever been destroyed because its citizens learned too much.” - Robert McKee

30. “Segundo Platão, um filosofo grego:No início da criação, os homens e as mulheres não eram como hoje; havia apenas um ser, baixo, com um corpo e um pescoço, mas a cabeça tinha duas faces, cada uma olhando para uma direcção. Era como se as duas criaturas estivessem presas pelas costas, com dois sexos opostos, quatro pernas e quatro braços.Os deuses gregos, porém, eram ciumentos, e viram que uma criatura que tinha quatro braços trabalhava mais, as duas faces opostas estavam sempre vigilantes e não exigiram tanto esforço para ficar de pé ou andar por longos períodos. E, o que era mais perigoso, a tal criatura tinha dois sexos diferentes, não precisavam de ninguém para continuar a reproduzir-se. Então, disse Zeus, o supremo senhor do Paraíso: "Tenho um plano para fazer com que estes mortais percam a sua força."E, com um raio, cortou a criatura em dois, criando o homem e a mulher. Isso aumentou muito a população do mundo, e ao mesmo tempo desorientou e enfraqueceu os que nele habitavam- porque agora tinham de procurar de novo a sua parte perdida, abraçá-la novamente, e nesse abraço recuperar a força antiga, a capacidade de evitar a traição, a resistência para andar durante longos períodos e aguentar o trabalho cansativo. A esse abraço em que os dois corpos se fundem de novo em um chamamos sexo.(...)Depois de os deuses separarem a dita criatura com sexos opostos, por que razão algumas delas resolvem que o dito abraço pode ser apenas uma coisa, um negocio como outro qualquer- que em vez de aumentar, retira a energia às pessoas ? ” - Paulo Coelho

31. “In Darwins post-platonische werelds is de variatie de fundamentele werkelijkheid en veranderen berekende gemiddelden in abstracties. We blijven echter de voorkeur geven aan het oudere en tegengestelde standpunt: we zien variatie nog steeds als een massa onlogische toevalligheden, die hoofdzakelijk van waarde is omdat zo'n spreiding te gebruiken is voor de berekening van een gemiddelde, hetgeen we dan beschouwen als iets wat een essentie nog het best benadert.” - Stephen Jay Gould

32. “The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things.” - Plato

33. “Wealth does not bring about excellence, but excellence makes wealth and everything else good for men, both individually and collectively.” - Socrates

34. “When I kiss Agathon my soul is on my lips, where it comes, poor thing, hoping to cross over.” - Plato

35. “... when someone sees a soul disturbed and unable to see something, he won't laugh mindlessly, but he'll take into consideration whether it has come from a brighter life and is dimmed through not having yet become accustomed to the dark or whether it has come from greater ignorance into greater light and is dazzled by the increased brillance.” - Plato

36. “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.” - Plato

37. “And so, when a person meets the half that is his very own, whatever his orientation, whether it's to young men or not, then something wonderful happens: the two are struck from their senses by love, by a sense of belonging to one another, and by desire, and they don't want to be separated from one another, not even for a moment.” - Plato

38. “Even now I'm well aware that if I allowed myself to listen to him I couldn't resist but would have the same experience again. He makes me admit that, in spite of my great defects, I neglect myself and instead get involved in Athenian politics. So I force myself to block my ears and go away, like someone escaping from the Sirens, to prevent myself sitting there beside him till I grow old.” - Plato

39. “I soon realized that poets do not compose their poems with knowledge, but by some inborn talent and by inspiration, like seers and prophets who also say many fine things without any understanding of what they say.” - Socrates

40. “Do you know, when I am with you I am not afraid at all. It is a magic altogether curious that happens inside the heart. I wish I could take it with me when I leave.It is sad, my Grey. We are constrained by the rules of this Game we play. There is not one little place under those rules for me to be with you happily. Or apart happily, which is what makes it so unfair.I have discovered a curious fact about myself. An hour ago I was sure you were dead, and it hurt very much. Now you are alive, and it is only that I must leave you, and I find that even more painful. That is not at all logical.Do you know the Symposium, Grey? The Symposium of Plato. [He] says that lovers are like two parts of an egg that fit together perfectly. Each half is made for the other, the single match to it. We are incomplete alone. Together, we are whole. All men are seeking that other half of themselves. Do you remember?I think you are the other half of me. It was a great mix-up in heaven. A scandal. For you there was meant to be a pretty English schoolgirl in the city of Bath and for me some fine Italian pastry cook in Palermo. But the cradles were switched somehow, and it all ended up like this…of an impossibility beyond words.I wish I had never met you. And in all my life I will not forget lying beside you, body to body, and wanting you.” - Joanna Bourne

41. “My worldview aside from my Christian perspective is more aligned with Plato's thinking, conclusions, and philosophy” - R. Alan Woods

42. “There was no sign of Plato, and I was told later that he had gone to live in his Republic, where he was cheerfully submitting to his own Laws. [...] None of the Stoics were present. Rumour had it that they were still clambering up the steep hill of Virtue [...]. As for the Sceptics, it appeared that they were extremely anxious to get there, but still could not quite make up their minds whether or not the island really existed.” - Lucian of Samosata

43. “Is there not one true coin for which all things ought to exchange?- and that is wisdom; and only in exchange for this, and in company with this, is anything truly bought or sold, whether courage, temperance or justice. And is not all true virtue the companion of wisdom, no matter what fears or pleasures or other similar goods or evils may or may not attend her? But the virtue which is made up of these goods, when they are severed from wisdom and exchanged with one another, is a shadow of virtue only, nor is there any freedom or health or truth in her; but in the true exchange there is a purging away of all these things, and temperance, and justice, and courage, and wisdom herself, are a purgation of them.” - Socrates

44. “Philosophy is a bitter medicine with many fearsome side effects, but if you are able to stomach it, it can cure your soul of the many ills and infirmities of ignorance. Given the choice, most men prefer not to take it, and many of those who do soon find that they cannot carry on with it. In the end, they choose what is more pleasant over what is more wholesome, and prefer the society of those who encourage them in their follies to that of those who admonish and improve them. You, on the other hand, appear to be minded otherwise, for when a young men sets for himself the highest standards of education and conduct, he naturally shuns the company of mindless nobodies and boldly seeks out that of the singular men who are prepared to teach him and challenge him and exhort him to virtue. In time, by his strivings, he will come to realize that it is from the hardest toil and noblest deeds that the purest and most persisting pleasures are to be had, and, taking pity on other men, and thinking also of the gods, he will do everything in his power to share this precious secret.” - Neel Burton

45. “My cough is much worse at night and often prevents me from sleeping. It is not so much the daytime tiredness that I resent, but the inability to proceed uninter- rupted with my dreams, to run and play with my fancies, and, at last, in the early hours of the morning, to be visited with visions like a holy madman. The dreamer is like a Delian diver, fishing for pearls from the depths of our inner sea of knowledge; and I must have solved, or rather resolved, many more problems in my sleep than in my conscious hours.” - Neel Burton

46. “Plato argued that good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will always find a way around law. By pretending that procedure will get rid of corruption, we have succeeded only in humiliating honest people and provided a cover of darkness and complexity for the bad people. There is a scandal here, but it's not the result of venal bureaucrats. (1994) p. 99” - Philip K. Howard

47. “My metaphysical thinking is more in alignment with Plato rather than Aristotle's." ~R. Alan Woods [2013]” - R. Alan Woods