It is only just that anything that grows up on its own should feel it has nothing to repay for an upbringing which it owes no one.

You should not honor men more than truth.

He was a wise man who invented God.

They deem him their worst enemy who tells them the truth. -Plato, philosopher (427-347 BCE)

[W]hen men have both done and suffered injustice and have had experience of both, not being able to avoid the one and obtain the other, they think that they had better agree among themselves to...

Is it not true that the clever rogue is like the runner who runs well for the first half of the course, but flags before reaching the goal: he is quick off the mark, but...

For this feeling of wonder shows that you are a philosopher, since wonder is the only beginning of philosophy.

Knowledge unqualified is knowledge simply of something learned.

Musical innovation is full of danger to the State, for when modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the State always change with them.

If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered over the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions of some...

Time is the moving image of eternity.

Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul.

A poet, you see, is a light thing, and winged and holy, and cannot compose before he gets inspiration and loses control of his senses and his reason has deserted him.

Knowledge is the food of the soul.

Old age has a great sense of calm and freedom when the passions relax their hold, then, as Sophocles says, we are free from the grasp, not of one mad master only, but of many.

Justice is useful when money is useless.

…when he looks at Beauty in the only way that Beauty can be seen – only then will it become possible for him to give birth not to images of virtue (because he’s in touch...

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

…in the running of cities, virtually nothing is done by anyone that is conducive to political health, nor is there a single ally with whom one might go to the aid of justice and still...

[“F]or it’s not possible,” [Socrates] said, “for anybody to experience a greater evil than hating arguments. Hatred of arguments and hatred of human beings come about in the same way. For hatred of human beings...

The man who finds that in the course of his life he has done a lot of wrong often wakes up at night in terror, like a child with a nightmare, and his life is...

Philosophy is the highest music.

And whenever any one informs us that he has found a man who knows all the arts, and all things else that anybody knows, and every single thing with a higher degree of accuracy than...

No wealth can ever make a bad man at peace with himself

As it is, the lover of inquiry must follow his beloved wherever it may lead him.

Every king springs from a race of slaves, and every slave had kings among his ancestors.

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

The Muse herself makes some men inspired, from whom a chain of other men is strung out who catch their own inspiration from theirs.

Money-makers are tiresome company, as they have no standard but cash value.

a life without investigation is not worth living

For once touched by love, everyone becomes a poet

Similarly with regard to truth, won’t we say that a soul is maimed if it hates a voluntary falsehood, cannot endure to have one in itself, and is greatly angered when it exists in others,...

Writing is the geometry of the soul.

Appearance tyrannizes over truth.

A dog has the soul of a philosopher.

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

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.

The reason is that they utter these words of theirs not by virtue of a skill, but by a divine power – otherwise, if they knew how to speak well on one topic thanks to...

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

There is nothing which for my part I like better, Cephalus, than conversing with aged men; for I regard them as travellers who have gone a journey which I too may have to go, and...

If it were necessary either to do wrong or to suffer it, I should choose to suffer rather than do it.

Piety, then, is that which is dear to the gods, and impiety is that which is not dear to them.

Many are the noble words in which poets speak concerning the actions of men; but like yourself when speaking about Homer, they do not speak of them by any rules of art: they are simply...

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

virtue does not spring from riches, but riches and all other human blessings, both private and public, from virtue.

Amicus Plato — amicus Aristoteles — magis amica veritas. (Plato is my friend — Aristotle is my friend — but my greatest friend is truth.)

Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.

Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.

For I am certain, O men of Athens, that if I had engaged in politics, I should have perished long ago and done no good either to you or to myself.

If there were only some way of contriving that a state or an army should be made up of lovers and their loves, they would be the very best governors of their own city, abstaining...