Plato (c.429–c.347 BCE) was a Greek philosopher. A pupil of Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle, Plato founded the Academy, one of antiquity’s great philosophical schools. Plato is the most widely studied of all the ancient Greek philosophers. His beliefs had an enormous impact on the development of Western philosophy.
Born an Athenian nobleman, Plato rejected social privilege to devote his life to philosophy. According to legend, when Plato was just twenty, he was on his way to a theater festival to present his manuscript for a tragedy. By chance, he heard Socrates speak. Plato was so stirred that he burned his manuscript at once, and decided to follow Socrates. The Pythagoreans also influenced Plato, as did the pre-Socratic Greek philosophers Heraclitus and Parmenides.
Plato established the dialogue as a vehicle of philosophical thought. With Socrates as the principal speaker, Plato wrote about topics as varied as love, government, politics, ethics, friendship, metaphysics, law, and cosmology. Plato’s works are the reason we know much about Socrates; Plato’s dialogues characterize Socrates as a shrewd and versatile interrogator. Plato never makes himself a part of the dialogues in his works, nor does he claim that he heard any of the dialogues.
After the death of Socrates, Plato traveled to Egypt and Italy studied in Pythagoras and then remained as an advisor for the rulers of Syracuse. When he returned to Athens around the age of forty he started his own academy, where he tried to impart the Socratic style of teaching to his students. The Academy operated till 529 CE after which it was closed, thinking it was a threat to Christianity.
All of Plato’s 36 works endure. His most famous dialogues include Gorgias (on rhetoric as an art of flattery,) Phaedo (on death and the immortality of the soul,) and the Symposium (a discussion on the nature of love.)
Plato’s most significant work was the Republic, a protracted discussion on justice. In it, he proposed his ideal political system based on the division of the population into three classes—rulers, police and armed forces, and civilians—determined not by birth or affluence but by education.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Plato
Let nobody speak mischief of anybody.
—Plato
Topics: Insults, Slander
Necessity, who is the mother of our invention.
—Plato
Topics: Motivation
As it is not proper to cure the eyes without the head, nor the head without the body, so neither is it proper to cure the body without the soul.
—Plato
Topics: Soul
He who commits injustice is ever made more wretched than he who suffers it.
—Plato
Topics: Crime, Criminals
False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.
—Plato
Topics: Deception/Lying
Better be unborn than untaught, for ignorance is the root of misfortune.
—Plato
Topics: Ignorance
Seven years of silent inquiry are needful for a man to learn the truth, but fourteen in order to learn how to make it known to his fellowmen.
—Plato
Topics: Truth
Courage is a kind of salvation.
—Plato
Topics: Courage
He whom love touches not walks in darkness.
—Plato
Of all wild beasts, the most difficult to manage.
—Plato
Everyone is bound to bear patiently the results of his own behavior.
—Plato
Topics: Behavior
The heaviest penalty for deciding to engage in politics is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.
—Plato
Topics: Politics
There are few people so stubborn in their atheism who when danger is pressing in will not acknowledge the divine power.
—Plato
Topics: Atheism
A sensible man will remember that the eyes may be confused in two ways – by a change from light to darkness or from darkness to light; and he will recognize that the same thing happens to the soul.
—Plato
Topics: Light
Holiness is what is loved by all the gods. It is loved because it is holy, and not holy because it is loved.
—Plato
All the gold which is under or upon the earth is not enough to give in exchange for virtue.
—Plato
Topics: Gold
Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.
—Plato
Topics: Opinion, Opinions
The cause of all the blunders committed by man arises from excessive self-love. He who intends to be a great man ought to love neither himself nor his own things, but only what is just, whether it happens to be done by himself or by another.
—Plato
Topics: Self-Discovery, Self-love
Pleasure is the greatest incentive to evil.
—Plato
Topics: Pleasure
There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain.
—Plato
Topics: Men
All things will be produced in superior quantity and quality, and with greater ease, when each man works at a single occupation, in accordance with his natural gifts, and at the right moment, without meddling with anything else.
—Plato
Topics: Professionalism
Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand.
—Plato
Topics: Poetry
You will soon break the bow if you keep it always stretched.
—Plato
Topics: Success & Failure, Achievement
Any city however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, the other of the rich. These are at war with one another.
—Plato
Topics: Cities, City Life
Pleasure is the bait of sin.
—Plato
Topics: Pleasure
Arguments derived from probabilities are idle
—Plato
Topics: Arguments, One liners
Education is teaching our children to desire the right things.
—Plato
Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity.
—Plato
Topics: Beauty, Virtues, Harmony, Simplicity
All men are by nature equal, made, all, of the same earth by the same Creator, and however we deceive ourselves, as dear to God is the poor peasant as the mighty prince.
—Plato
Topics: Equality
Mankind censure injustice fearing that they may be the victims of it, and not because they shrink from committing it.
—Plato
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Aristotle Ancient Greek Philosopher
Xenocrates Greek Philosopher, Scientist
Heraclitus Ancient Greek Philosopher
Epicurus Greek Philosopher
Epictetus Ancient Greek Philosopher
Plotinus Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mystic
Bias of Priene Greek Orator
Charles Sanders Peirce American Philosopher
Socrates Ancient Greek Philosopher
Pythagoras Greek Philosopher