Plato was a philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the foundations of Western philosophy and science.
In the words of A. N. Whitehead:
" The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. I do not mean the systematic scheme of thought which scholars have doubtfully extracted from his writings. I allude to the wealth of general ideas scattered through them. "
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.”
― Plato
“Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.”
― Plato
“Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.”
― Plato
“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination
and life to everything.”
― Plato
“The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”
― Plato
“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.”
― Plato
“Only the dead have seen the end of war.”
― Plato
“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 of the genius of each.”
― Plato
“The heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.”
― Plato, The Republic
“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.”
― Plato
“Love is a serious mental disease.”
― Plato, Phaedrus
“One of the penalties of refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”
― Plato
“Never discourage anyone...who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.”
― Plato
“There is truth in wine and children”
― Plato, Symposium/Phaedrus
“Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws”
― Plato
“The madness of love is the greatest of heaven's blessings”
― Plato
“Ignorance, the root and stem of every evil.”
― Plato
“I know not how I may seem to others, but to myself I am but a small child wandering upon the vast shores of knowledge, every now and then finding a small bright pebble to content myself with.”
― Plato
“Those who tell the stories rule society.”
― Plato
