bzichettGreek author & philosopher in Athens (427 BC - 347 BC) • 76 quotes.
They certainly give very strange names to diseases.
Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.
You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.
Never discourage anyone...who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.
You are young, my son, and, as the years go by, time will change and even reverse many of your present opinions. Refrain therefore awhile from setting yourself up as a judge of the highest matters.
If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.
No law or ordinance is mightier than understanding.
The beginning is the most important part of the work.
Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.
Necessity, who is the mother of invention.
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things.
We are twice armed if we fight with faith.
Ignorance of all things is an evil neither terrible nor excessive, nor yet the greatest of all; but great cleverness and much learning, if they be accompanied by a bad training, are a much greater misfortune.
I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly combat.
Poetry comes nearer to vital truth than history.
As empty vessels make the loudest sound, so they that have least with are the greatest babblers.
Thinking is the talking of the soul with itself.
But, my dearest Agathon, it is truth which you cannot contradict; you can without any difficulty contradict Socrates.
...Then anyone who leaves behind him a written manual, and likewise anyone who receives it, in the belief that such writing will be clear and certain, must be exceedingly simple-minded...
Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable.
Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.
He was a wise man who invented God.
He who does not desire power is fit to hold it.
Attention to health is life's greatest hindrance.
Philosophy is the highest music.
Friends have all things in common.
No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.
Must not all things at the last be swallowed up in death?
The partisan, when he is engaged in a dispute, cares nothing about the rights of the question, but is anxious only to convince his hearers of his own assertions.
False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.
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.
When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income.
Mankind censure injustice fearing that they may be the victims of it, and not because they shrink from committing it.
Everything that deceives may be said to enchant.
Wealth is the parent of luxury and indolence, and poverty of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent.
The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future life.
Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another.
I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning.
The people have always some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness...This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.
There are three arts which are concerned with all things: one which uses, another which makes, and a third which imitates them.
The soul of man is immortal and imperishable.
You cannot conceive the many without the one.
The greatest penalty of evildoing - namely, to grow into the likeness of bad men.
Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, and life to everything.
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.
We can forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.
Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses.
No human thing is of serious importance.
The qualities which a man seeks in his beloved are those characteristics of his own soul, whether he knows it or not.
For this invention of yours will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn it, by causing them to neglect their memory, inasmuch as, from their confidence in writing, they will recollect by the external aid of foreign symbols, and not by the internal use of their own faculties. Your discovery, therefore, is a medicine not for memory, but for recollection-for recalling to, not for keeping in mind.
The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government is to live under the government of worse men.
Death is not the worst than can happen to men.
Ignorance, the root and the stem of every evil.
There is no such thing as a lover's oath.
Man...is a tame or civilized animal; never the less, he requires proper instruction and a fortunate nature, and then of all animals he becomes the most divine and most civilized; but if he be insufficiently or ill- educated he is the most savage of earthly creatures.
Laws are partly formed for the sake of good men, in order to instruct them how they may live on friendly terms with one another, and partly for the sake of those who refuse to be instructed, whose spirit cannot be subdued, or softened, or hindered from plunging into evil.
The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.
Honesty is for the most part, less profitable than dishonesty.
When men speak ill of thee, live so as nobody may believe them.
Courage is knowing what not to fear.
All men are by nature equal, made all of the same earth by one Workman; and however we deceive ourselves, as dear unto God is the poor peasant as the mighty prince.
Science is nothing but perception.
Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety and life to everything. It is the essence of order, and leads to all that is good, just, and beautiful, of which it is the invisible, but never less, dazzaling, passionate, and eternal form.
No man should bring children into the world who is unwilling to persevere to the end in their nature and education.
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
Just as it would be madness to settle on medical treatment for the body of a person by taking an opinion poll of the neighbors, so it is irrational to prescribe for the body politic by polling the opinions of the people at large.
Knowledge is true opinion.
Justice will only exist where those not affected by injustice are filled with the same amount of indignation as those offended.
Death is not the worst that can happen to men.
Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten imparting grace.
If one has made a mistake, and fails to correct it, one has made a greater mistake.
At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet.