Plato
Plato
Platowas a philosopher in Classical Greece and the founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. He is widely considered the most pivotal figure in the development of philosophy, especially the Western tradition. Unlike nearly all of his philosophical contemporaries, Plato's entire œuvre is believed to have survived intact for over 2,400 years...
NationalityGreek
ProfessionPhilosopher
half wells
As the proverb says, "a good beginning is half the business" and "to have begun well" is praised by all.
sight air sea
We are too feeble and sluggish to make our way out to the upper limit of the air. If someone could reach the summit, or put on wings and fly aloft, when he put up his head he would see the world above, just as fishes see our world when they put up their heads out of the sea; and if his nature were able to bear the sight, he would recognize that that is the true heaven...
thinking deception noble
To think truly is noble and to be deceived is base.
block taken men
I would have you imagine, then, that there exists in the mind of man a block of wax... and that we remember and know what is imprinted as long as the image lasts; but when the image is effaced, or cannot be taken, then we forget or do not know.
feet errors shoes
Putting the shoe on the wrong foot.
victory runners prize
The true runner comes to the finish and receives the prize and is crowned.
men good-man answers
If you ask: What is the good of education? The answer is easy: Education makes good men and good men act nobly.
human-nature
Many are the thyrsus-bearers, but few are the mystics.
men knowing society
No man's nature is able to know what is best for the social state of man; or, knowing, always able to do what is best.
hate heart men
The well-nurtured youth is one who would see most clearly whatever was amiss in ill-made works of man or ill-grown works of nature, and with a just distaste would blame and hate the ugly even from his earliest years and would give delighted praise to beauty, receiving it into his soul and being nourished by it, so that he became a man of gentle heart.....
justice may hearing
May not the wolf, as the proverb says, claim a hearing?
poet asks
Don't ask a poet to explain himself. He cannot.
divinity poet bondage
The poets are nothing but interpreters of the gods, each one possessed by the divinity to whom he is in bondage.
art men law
In one sense it is evident that the art of kingship does include the art of lawmaking. But the political ideal is not full authority for laws but rather full authority for a man who understands the art of kingship and has kingly ability.