Plato S Quotes

• He suddenly recalled from Plato's Symposium: People were hermaphrodites until God split then in two, and now all the halves wander the world over seeking one another. Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost.

  Milan Kundera

  Plato, Philosophy, Love Is

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• It seems to us unwise to have insisted on teaching geometry to the younger Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, in order to make him a good king, but from Plato's point of view it was essential. He was sufficiently Pythagorean to think that without mathematics no true wisdom is possible.

  Bertrand Russell

  Kings, Plato, Teaching

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “History of Western Philosophy: Collectors Edition”, p.95, Routledge

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• 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 C. Lichtenberg

  Plato, Pride, Dwelling

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• Indeed, the very first acknowledgment (as far as I am aware) of the attraction of mutilated bodies occurs in a founding description of mental conflict. It is a passage in The Republic, Book IV, where Plato’s Socrates describes how our reason may be overwhelmed by an unworthy desire, which drives the self to become angry with a part of its nature.

  Susan Sontag

  Plato, Book, Self

  Susan Sontag (2013). “Regarding the Pain of Others”, p.96, Macmillan

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• It is the teaching of the Bible and of sound Political ethics that the education of children belongs to the sphere of the family and is the duty of the parents. The theory that the children of the Commonwealth are the charge of the Commonwealth is a pagan one, derived from heathen Sparta and Platoís heathen republic, and connected by regular, logical sequence with legalized prostitution and the dissolution of the conjugal tie.

  Robert Dabney

  Education, Children, Plato

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• There is nothing that has caused me to meditate more on Plato's secrecy and sphinx-like nature, than the happily preserved petit fait that under the pillow of his death-bed there was found no 'Bible,' nor anything Egyptian, Pythagorean, or Platonic - but a book of Aristophanes. How could even Plato have endured life - a Greek life which he repudiated - without an Aristophanes!

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Plato, Book, Greek

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2016). “BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL - Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future: The Critique of the Traditional Morality and the Philosophy of the Past”, p.24, e-artnow

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• Plato's cave is full of freaks.

  Jack Johnson

  Plato, Philosophy, Caves

  Song: Inaudible Melodies, Album: Brushfire Fairytales

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• People have Plato's form in their mind of what a leader is, or what a C.E.O. is, and it is a bunch of elements that I really don't conform to at all. I've given this a lot of thought, and I came to the conclusion that I don't care.

  Dick Costolo

  Plato, People, Leader

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• While wading through the whimsies, the puerilities, and unintelligible jargon of this work [Plato's Republic], I laid it down often to ask myself how it could have been that the world should have so long consented to give reputation to such nonsense as this?

  Thomas Jefferson

  Plato, Philosophy, Science

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, Correspondence, and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Late President of the United States”, p.248

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• When reality becomes unbearable, the mind must withdraw from it and create a world of artificial perfection. Plato's world of pure Ideas and Forms, which alone is to be considered as real, whereas the world of nature which we perceive is merely its cheap Woolworth copy, is a flight into delusion.

  Arthur Koestler

  Plato, Real, Ideas

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• In the most general terms, the Enlightenment goes back to Plato's belief that truth and beauty and goodness are connected; that truth and beauty, disseminated widely, will sooner or later lead to goodness. (While we're making at effort at truth and goodness, beauty reminds us what we're hold out for.)

  Susan Neiman

  Plato, Effort, Enlightenment

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• Do what nature now requires. Set thyself in motion, if it is in thy power, and do not look about thee to see if any one will observe it; nor yet expect Plato's Republic: but be content if the smallest thing goes on well, and consider such an event to be no small matter.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Plato, Events, Looks

  Marcus Aurelius (2016). “Meditations”, p.66, Enhanced Media Publishing

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• To his [ Plato's ] great disappointment, he found Anaxagoras adducing simple physical reasons, instead of the teleological reasons, which he had expected. Such a teacher could no longer allure him.

  George Henry Lewes

  Teacher, Plato, Disappointment

  George Henry Lewes (1864). “Aristotle: a chapter from the history of science including analyses of Aristotle's scientific writings”, p.102, London : Smith, Elder and Company

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• Plato had defined Man as an animal, biped and featherless, and was applauded. Diogenes plucked a fowl and brought it into the lecture-room with the words, "Behold Plato's man!"

  Diogenes

  Plato, Men, Animal

  "Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, Book 6: The Cynics". Book by Diogenes Laërtius translated by R. D. Hicks, 1925.

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• Plato's world of ideas is beautiful.

  Carl Jung

  Beautiful, Plato, Ideas

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• I don't want my kids growing up with the image of God that I had -- Plato's white grandfatherly god -- because that god is not a very good father. When it comes down to it, you can't trust him with your kids.

  William P. Young

  Growing Up, Plato, Father

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• Beneath the surface of repartee and mock seriousness, [Plato's Phaedrus] is asking whether we ought to prefer a neuter form of speech to the kind which is ever getting us aroused over things and provoking an expense of spirit.

  Richard M. Weaver

  Plato, Asking, Speech

  Richard M. Weaver (1985). “The Ethics of Rhetoric”, p.5, Psychology Press

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• That Plato's Republic should have been admired, on its political side, by decent people, is perhaps the most astonishing example of literary snobbery in all history.

  Bertrand Russell

  Plato, Should Have, People

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.436, Routledge

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• In Plato's opinion, man was made for philosophy; in Bacon's opinion, philosophy was made for man.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Plato, Philosophy, Science

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• We may like well to know what is Plato’s and what is Montesquieu’s or Goethe’s part, and what thought was always dear to the writer himself; but the worth of the sentences consists in their radiancy and equal aptitude to all intelligence. They fit all our facts like a charm. We respect ourselves the more that we know them.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Plato, May, Aptitude

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2614, Delphi Classics

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• Do not expect Plato's ideal republic; be satisfied with even the smallest step forward, and consider this no small achievement.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Plato, Achievement, Republic

  Marcus Aurelius (Emperor of Rome) (1963). “The Meditations”, Bobbs-Merrill Company

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• 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

  Plato, Eye, Men

  Daniel Keyes (2007). “Flowers for Algernon”, p.285, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I am Plato's Republic. Mr. Simmons is Marcus. I want you to meet Jonathan Swift, the author of that evil political book, Gulliver's Travels! And this other fellow is Charles Darwin, and-this one is Schopenhauer, and this one is Einstein, and this one here at my elbow is Mr. Albert Schweitzer, a very kind philosopher indeed. Here we all are, Montag. Aristophanes and Mahatma Gandhi and Gautama Buddha and Confucius and Thomas Love Peacock and Thomas Jefferson and Mr. Lincoln, if you please. We are also Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

  Ray Bradbury

  Plato, Book, Evil

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• I am the owner of the sphere, Of the seven stars and the solar year, of Caesar's hand, and Plato's brain, Of Lord Christ's heart, and Shakespeare's strain.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Stars, Plato, Heart

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1962). “The Portable Emerson”

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• With copious evidence ranging from Plato's haughtiness to Beethoven's tirades, we may conclude that the most brilliant people of history tend to be a prickly lot.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Plato, People, Haughtiness

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