Ancient Wisdom: Famous Sayings Of Plato
Disciple of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle, the Greek philosopher Plato left posterity a treasure trove of wisdom. Here are some of his famous sayings!
Plato's life lessons are all the more valuable for us modern people who, caught up in the whirlwind of daily concerns, often tend to neglect the needs of the soul, the values that truly give substance to human life.
We present below a collection of the great philosopher's sayings - precious pieces of advice and thoughts - that are sure to make you ponder.
The Famous Sayings Of Plato
1. Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.
2. The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile.
3. 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.
4. Man is a being in search of meaning.
5. Those who intend on becoming great should love neither themselves nor their own things, but only what is just, whether it happens to be done by themselves or others.
6. Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.
7. Caring about the happiness of others, we find our own.
8. False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.
9. When people say bad things about you, live in such a way that no one can believe them.
10. Knowledge becomes evil if the aim is not virtuous.
11. Whether a worse or a better fate awaits us, acting unjustly is always a mistake and a shame.
12. The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.
13. Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.
14. Better to bear an insult yourself than to inflict it on another.
15. There are three classes of men: lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain.
16. Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.
17. Education is teaching our children to desire the right things.
18. There is in every one of us, even those who seem to be most moderate, a type of desire that is terrible, wild, and lawless.
19. All knowledge, when separated from justice and virtue, is seen to be cunning and not wisdom.
20. No man is to be valued more than the truth.
21. Courage is knowing what not to fear.
22. He who is of calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden.
23. You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than a year of conversation.
24. To love rightly is to love what is orderly and beautiful in an educated and disciplined way.
25. Let each of you not take care of his own things before he takes care of himself, that he may become as good and wise as possible.
26. Become wise yourself, or if you are incapable of it, let yourself be guided by one who is truly wise.
27. Friends have all things in common.
28. The good are like one another, and friends to one another; and the bad, as is often said of them, are never at unity with one another or with themselves but are passionate and restless: and that which is at variance and enmity with itself is not likely to be in union or harmony with any other thing.
29. A thing to be well judged must be judged by the wise, not by the many.
30. There is no man so cowardly whom love does not make brave and transform into a hero.
31. Books give a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.
32. It is only through thought and rational thinking that a person can deduce the forms and acquire genuine knowledge.
33. Time is the moving image of eternity.
34. Seek not to increase wealth, but to reduce desire.
35. Desires are only the lack of something: and those who have the greatest desires are in a worse condition than those who have none or very slight ones.
36. Some have courage in pleasures, and some in pains: some in desires, and some in fears, and some are cowards under the same conditions.
37. The eyes are the windows of the soul.
38. The soul of man is immortal and imperishable.
39. For this is the great error of our day in the treatment of the human body, that physicians separate the soul from the body.
40. Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety.
41. We should fly from Earth to Heaven as fast as we can. And to fly from here is to become like God, as far as that is possible. And to become like Him means to become holy, righteous, and wise.
Picture Credit: cmuse.org
