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...

but you might succeed with the second, and later generations.

let the speaker speak truly and the judge decide justly.

The soul takes nothing with her to the next world but her education and her culture. At the beginning of the journey to the next world, one’s education and culture can either provide the greatest...

Si vis pacem, para bellum

The State is like a great and noble steed who is tardy in his motions owing to his very size, and requires to be stirred into life. I am that gadfly which God has given...

Nor when love is of this disinterested sort is there any disgrace in being deceived, but in every other case there is equal disgrace in being or not being deceived. For he who is gracious...

….I am inclined to think that these muscles and bones of mine would have gone off long ago to Megara or Boeotia—by the dog they would, if they had been moved only by their own...

Only the dead have seen the end of war.

But I don’t think we shall quarrel about a word – the subject of our inquiry is too important for that.

this is the greatest good to man, to discourse daily on virtue, and other things which you have heard me discussing, examining both myself and others,

I really do not know, Socrates, how to express what I mean. For somehow or other our arguments, on whatever ground we rest them, seem to turn round and walk away from us.

The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.

There is also a third kind of madness, which is possession by the Muses, enters into a delicate and virgin soul, and there inspiring frenzy, awakens lyric….But he, who, not being inspired and having no...

… there is no necessity for the man who means to be an orator to understand what is really just but only what would appear so to the majority of those who will give judgment;...

No matter how hard you fight the darkness, every light casts a shadow, and the closer you get to the light, the darker that shadow becomes.

I am smart because I know I nothing.

Then the lover, who is true and no counterfeit, must of necessity be loved by his love.

That’s what education should be,” I said, “the art of orientation. Educators should devise the simplest and most effective methods of turning minds around. It shouldn’t be the art of implanting sight in the organ,...

Plato was the first to envisage the idea of timeless existence and to emphasize it—against reason—as a reality, more [real] than our actual experience…

The poet is a light and winged and holy thing, and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his sneses, and the mind is no longer in...

There is nothing I like better than conversing with aged men. For I regard them as travelers who have gone a journey which I too may have to go, and of whom I ought to...

Socrates: This man, on one hand, believes that he knows something, while not knowing [anything]. On the other hand, I – equally ignorant – do not believe [that I know anything].

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.

If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.

But this is not difficult, O Athenians! to escape death; but it is much more difficult to avoid depravity, for it runs swifter than death. And now I, being slow and aged, am overtaken by...

Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent...

All the same, we ought to point out that if the kinds of poetry and representation which are designed merely to give pleasure can come up with a rational argument for their inclusion in a...

Do you mean that the tyrant will dare to use violence against the people who fathered him, and raise his hand against them if they oppose him? So the tyrant is a parricide, and little...

Be kind, because everyone is having a really hard time.

the matter is as it is in all other cases: if it is naturally in you to be a good orator, a notable orator you will be when you have acquired knowledge and practice …

Ideas are the source of all things

The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things.

No man should bring children into the world who is unwilling to persevere to the end in their nature and education.

I am speaking like a book, but I believe that what I am saying is true.

[On the virtuous man] “He combines the highest, lowest and middle chords in complete harmony within himself.

Wise men talk because they have something to say; Fools, because they have to say something.

good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws

Physical excellence does not of itself produce a good mind and character: on the other hand, excellence of mind and character will make the best of the physique it is given.

Excess of liberty, whether it lies in state or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery.

One of the penalties of refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.

Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.