Plato Quotes - Page 8

• Plato was right, but not quite right.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  "Saint Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox". Book by G. K. Chesterton, 1934.

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• Society is an illusion to the young citizen. It lies before him in rigid repose, with certain names, men, and institutions, rootedlike oak-trees to the centre, round which all arrange themselves the best they can. But the old statesman knows that society is fluid; there are no such roots and centres; but any particle may suddenly become the centre of the movement, and compel the system to gyrate round it, as every man of strong will, like Pisistratus, or Cromwell, does for a time, and every man of truth, like Plato, or Paul, does forever.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Strong, Lying, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.161, Graphic Arts Books

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• The first book I could call mine, my first book, was a picture book, The Magic Monkey - it was adapted from an old Chinese legend by a thirteen-year-old prodigy named Plato Chan with the help of his sister.

  Nick Flynn

  Book, Years, Chinese

  "The Ticking Is the Bomb" by Nick Flynn, www.esquire.com. January 24, 2008.

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• If you read only the best, you will have no need of reading the other books, because the latter are nothing but a rehash of the best and the oldest. To read Shakespeare, Plato, Dante, Milton, Spenser, Chaucer, and their compeers in prose, is to read in condensed form what all others have diluted.

  Anna Brackett

  Book, Reading, Needs

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• When Catholicism goes bad it becomes the world-old, world-wide religio of amulets and holy places and priestcraft. Protestantism,in its corresponding decay, becomes a vague mist of ethical platitudes. Catholicism is accused of being too much like all the other religions; Protestantism of being insufficiently like a religion at all. Hence Plato, with his transcendent Forms, is the doctor of Protestants; Aristotle, with his immanent Forms, the doctor of Catholics.

  C. S. Lewis

  Doctors, Catholic, Amulets

  C. S. Lewis (2013). “The Allegory of Love”, p.403, Cambridge University Press

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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, Father, Kids

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• Musick is certainly a very agreeable Entertainment, but if it would take the entire Possession of our Ears, if it would make us incapable of hearing Sense, if it would exclude Arts that have a much greater Tendency to the Refinement of human Nature; I must confess I would allow it no better Quarter than Plato has done, who banishes it out of his Common-wealth.

  Joseph Addison

  Music, Art, Hearing

  Joseph Addison (1867). “The Works of Joseph Addison: Including the Whole Contents of Bp. Hurd's Edition, with Letters and Other Pieces Not Found in Ay Previous Collection; and Macaulay's Essay on His Life and Works”, p.65

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• The genius of the Platonists, is intoxicating to the student, yet how few particulars of it can I detach from all their books.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Book, Genius, Students

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2012). “The Selected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.168, Graphic Arts Books

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• Plato said that poets should be excluded from the ideal republic because they are such liars. I am a poet, and I affirm that this is true. About no subject are poets tempted to lie so much as about their own lives; I know one of them who has floated at least five versions of his autobiography, none of them true. I of course - being also a novelist - am a much more truthful person than that. But since poets lie, how can you believe me?

  Margaret Atwood

  Liars, Lying, Believe

  "Margaret Atwood : Writing Philosophy". Waterstone's Poetry Lecture, Delivered At Hay On Wye, canpoetry.library.utoronto.ca. June 1995.

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• Plato and Hitler were both the same kind of consistent socialists who planned also for the production of future socialists, the breeding and education of future members of society.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Kind, Members, Breeding

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• Plato defines melody to consist of harmony, number and words: harmony naked of itself, words the ornament of harmony, number the common friend and uniter of them both.

  John Dowland

  Numbers, Ornaments, Naked

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• In general, I distrust philosophy. Plato recommended chasing poets from the city; the 'great' Heidegger was a Nazi; Lukacs was a communist; and J. P. Sartre wrote: 'Any anti-communist is a dog.'

  Claude Simon

  Dog, Philosophy, Cities

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• It must be so,-Plato, thou reasonest well! Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, This longing after immortality? Or whence this secret dread and inward horror Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul Back on herself, and startles at destruction? 'T is the divinity that stirs within us; 'T is Heaven itself that points out an hereafter, And intimates eternity to man. Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought!

  Joseph Addison

  Fall, Men, Heaven

  'Cato' (1713) act 5, sc. 1, l. 1

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• Plato affirmed that the soul was immortal and clothed in many bodies successively.

  Diogenes Laertius

  Soul, Body, Immortal

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• The study of the properties of numbers, Plato tells us, habituates the mind to the contemplation of pure truth, and raises us above the material universe. He would have his disciples apply themselves to this study, not that they may be able to buy or sell, not that they may qualify themselves to be shopkeepers or travelling merchants, but that they may learn to withdraw their minds from the ever-shifting spectacle of this visible and tangible world, and to fix them on the immutable essences of things.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Essence, Numbers, Mind

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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

  Asking, Speech, Spirit

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

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• Plato wove historical fact into literary myth.

  Michael Shermer

  Historical, Facts, Myth

  Michael Shermer (2016). “Skeptic: Viewing the World with a Rational Eye”, p.113, Henry Holt and Company

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• My father was a dreamy fellow - he read Plato and Socrates and watched Phillies games.

  Patti Smith

  Father, Games, Dreamy

  "Patti Smith on Art". Interview with Anthony DeCurtis, www.pbs.org. December 30, 2009.

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• After reading the doctrines of Plato, Socrates or Aristotle, we feel the specific difference between their words and Christ's is the difference between an inquiry and a revelation.

  Joseph Parker

  Christian, Jesus, Reading

  Joseph Parker (1867). “Ecce Deus: Essays on the Life and Doctrine of Jesus Christ : with Controversial Notes on "Ecce Homo".”, p.190

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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

  Philosophy, Science, Should Have

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

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• Philosophy does not regard pedigree, she received Plato not as a noble, but she made him one.

  Seneca the Younger

  Philosophy, Science, Doe

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• I owe what is best in my own development to the impression made by Kant's works, the sacred writings of the Hindus, and Plato.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Writing, Development, Sacred

  Arthur Schopenhauer (2012). “The World as Will and Representation”, p.417, Courier Corporation

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• I am a humanist because I think humanity can, with constant moral guidance, create reasonably decent societies. I think that young people who want to understand the world can profit from the works of Plato and Socrates, the behaviour of the three Thomases, Aquinas, More and Jefferson - the austere analyses of Immanuel Kant and the political leadership of Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt.

  James A. Michener

  Thinking, People, Political

  "The World Is My Home". Book by James A. Michener, 1991.

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• The greatest penalty of evil-doing is to grow into the likeness of a bad man.

  Plato

  Men, Evil, Penalties

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• When we are exalted by ideas, we do not owe this to Plato, but to the idea, to which also Plato was debtor.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Ideas, Debtors, Exalted

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1850). “Representative Men: Seven Lectures”, p.14

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