Quotes from book
Phaedrus

Plato Original title Φαῖδρος

The Phaedrus , written by Plato, is a dialogue between Plato's protagonist, Socrates, and Phaedrus, an interlocutor in several dialogues. The Phaedrus was presumably composed around 370 BC, about the same time as Plato's Republic and Symposium. Although ostensibly about the topic of love, the discussion in the dialogue revolves around the art of rhetoric and how it should be practiced, and dwells on subjects as diverse as metempsychosis and erotic love.


Plato photo

“Friends have all things in common.”

279
Phaedrus

Plato photo
Plato photo

“Socrates: The disgrace begins when a man writes not well, but badly.
Phaedrus: Clearly.
Socrates: And what is well and what is badly—need we ask Lysias, or any other poet or orator, who ever wrote or will write either a political or any other work, in metre or out of metre, poet or prose writer, to teach us this?”

258d (tr. Benjamin Jowett)
paraphrased in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig: "And what is good, Phaedrus, and what is not good—need we ask anyone to tell us these things?"
Phaedrus

Plato photo
Plato photo

“Oh dear Pan and all the other Gods of this place, grant that I may be beautiful inside.”

279 – a prayer of Socrates, as portrayed in the dialogue.
Phaedrus
Context: Oh dear Pan and all the other Gods of this place, grant that I may be beautiful inside. Let all my external possessions be in friendly harmony with what is within. May I consider the wise man rich. As for gold, let me have as much as a moderate man could bear and carry with him.

Plato photo

“…the madness of love is the greatest of heaven's blessings…”

245b–c
Phaedrus

Plato photo

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