75 Famous Plato Quotes On LOVE, LIVE & EDUCATION
Welcome to our blog post on Plato quotes! Plato was a wise philosopher from ancient Greece who had a lot of interesting things to say about life, love, learning, and leadership. His words have lived on for thousands of years because they still mean something to us today.
In this post, we’re going to share some of Plato’s most memorable quotes. Whether you’re looking for a little bit of inspiration, some deep thoughts to ponder, or just curious about what this famous thinker had to say, you’re in the right place.
Most Famous Plato Quotes
“The measure of a man is what he does with power.”
“At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet.”
“Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.”
“Only the dead have seen the end of war.”
“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”
“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”
“Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil.”
“Necessity is the mother of invention.”
“Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.”
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Best Plato Quotes On Love
“Love is a serious mental disease.”
“Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back.”
“He whom love touches not walks in darkness.”
“Love is the pursuit of the whole.”
“The madness of love is the greatest of heaven’s blessings.”
“Love is the joy of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the gods.”
“To love rightly is to love what is orderly and beautiful in an educated and disciplined way.”
“The god of love lives in a state of need.”
“Love is simply the name for the desire and pursuit of the whole.”
“When the mind is in love, it is not in a state of being but in a state of becoming.”
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Plato Quotes On Life
“Life must be lived as play.”
“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
“Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.”
“The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself.”
“The greatest wealth is to live content with little.”
“He who commits injustice is ever made more wretched than he who suffers it.”
“Excellence is not a gift, but a skill that takes practice.”
“Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body.”
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Plato Quotes On Politics
“Democracy passes into despotism.”
“The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government is to live under the government of worse men.”
“Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.”
“The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”
“States will never be happy until rulers become philosophers or philosophers become rulers.”
“Excess of liberty, whether it lies in state or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery.”
“The heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.”
“Statesmen should mind the affairs of the state.”
“The governance of a state should be in the hands of the one who knows how to rule.”
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Plato Quotes On Education And Knowledge
“The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future life.”
“Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.”
“Education is teaching our children to desire the right things.”
“Knowledge is the food of the soul.”
“The object of education is to teach us to love what is beautiful.”
“The learning and knowledge that we have is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant.”
“Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.”
“Wisdom begins with wonder.”
“Books are the means by which we build bridges between cultures.”
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Plato Philosophy Quotes
“Reality is created by the mind, we can change our reality by changing our mind.”
“Ideas are the source of all things.”
“Time is the moving image of eternity.”
“Man – a being in search of meaning.”
“The soul of man is immortal and imperishable.”
“A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers.”
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Plato Quotes On Death
“Death is not the worst that can happen to men.”
“To be afraid of death is only another form of thinking that one is wise when one is not; it is to think that one knows what one does not know.”
“No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew that it is the greatest of evils.”
“The soul takes nothing with her to the next world but her education and her culture.”
“Those who are hardest to love need it the most.”
“The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways; I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows.”
“There is no harm in repeating a good thing.”
“The souls of the dead are the spirits of the departed.”
“Death is the truest form of philosophy.”
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Plato Quotes On Leadership
“A ruler who is to be successful must listen carefully to many advisers, but talk to only a few.”
“Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.”
“The greatest of all victories is over oneself.”
“Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.”
“A leader is best when people barely know he exists.”
“True leadership is service to others.”
Inspirational And Motivational Plato Quotes
“Courage is knowing what not to fear.”
“Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others.”
“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.”
“Seek not to be like the masters, but seek what the masters sought.”
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.”
Wise Plato Quotes On Success
“The beginning is the most important part of the work.”
“He who is not a good servant will not be a good master.”
“Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds.”
“Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.”