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Plato Quotes
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80 Quotes Inspiring Wisdom and Enlightenment

Discover the wisdom of Plato through his most famous quotes. From the power of love to the importance of introspection, these words will inspire and enlighten.

Plato was an ancient Greek philosopher known for founding the Academy and teaching the philosophical doctrines that would later become known as Platonism. He was an innovator of written dialogue and dialectic forms in philosophy, and his most famous contribution is the theory of forms. Plato's works have survived intact for over 2,400 years and have greatly influenced both Christian and Islamic philosophy.

Little is known about Plato's early life and education, but he belonged to an aristocratic family and was born in Athens or Aegina between 428 and 423 BC. He founded the Academy in Athens at the age of 40, where many philosophers, including Aristotle, studied. Throughout his life, Plato became involved in politics and had encounters with tyrants, even facing slavery at one point. Plato's death remains a topic of debate among scholars. The origin of his name, Platon, remains mysterious with different theories suggesting it came from his physical broadness or the breadth of his eloquence.

✵ 7. May 427 BC – 347 BC
Plato photo
Plato: 80   quotes 109   likes

Plato Quotes

“The very rich are not good.”

Plato Laws

Book 5, 743c
Laws

“So when the universe was quickened with soul, God was well pleased; and he bethought him to make it yet more like its type. And whereas the type is eternal and nought that is created can be eternal, he devised for it a moving image of abiding eternity, which we call time. And he made days and months and years, which are portions of time; and past and future are forms of time, though we wrongly attribute them also to eternity. For of eternal Being we ought not to say 'it was', 'it shall be', but 'it is' alone: and in like manner we are wrong in saying 'it is' of sensible things which become and perish; for these are ever fleeting and changing, having their existence in time.”

Plato book Timaeus

37c–38b, as quoted by R. D. Archer-Hind, The Timaeus of Plato https://books.google.com/books?id=q2YMAAAAIAAJ (1888)
Timaeus

God , Soul , Universe , Change

“The orators — and the despots — have the least power in their cities … since they do nothing that they wish to do, practically speaking, though they do whatever they think to be best.”

Plato

Gorgias

Thinking

“Beauty is the splendor of truth.”

Plato
Truth , Beauty

“Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they would like to say something. As empty vessels make the loudest sounds, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers.”

Plato

Often attributed to Plato, it cannot be found in any of his writings ( see this http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=796). The quote is attributed to Plato in A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, Both Ancient and Modern (page 560) by Tryon Edwards.
Misattributed

Making love , Fools , Men

“Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.”

Plato
Knowledge , Exercises

“Cunning... is but the low mimic of wisdom.”

Plato
Wisdom

“Magic consists of, and is acquired by the worship of the gods.”

Plato

Quoted by H.P. Blavatsky, in The Theosophical Glossary, http://theosophy.org/Blavatsky/Theosophical%20Glossary/Thegloss.htm (1892)
Other

God

“Perception and knowledge could never be the same.”

Plato book Theaetetus

186e
Theaetetus

Knowledge

“No man of sense can put himself and his soul under the control of names... You must consider courageously and thoroughly and not accept anything carelessly.”

Plato book Cratylus

440c–d
Cratylus

Courage , Soul , Sense

“I do see one large and grievous kind of ignorance, separate from the rest, and as weighty as all the other parts put together. Thinking that one knows a thing when one does not know it. Through this, I believe, all the mistakes of the mind are caused in all of us.”

Plato book Sophist

229c
Sophist

Thinking , Parting