Plato on Thinking Quotes

"Knowledge is true opinion."

"Thinking is the soul's conversation with itself."

"For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories."

"The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future in life."

"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws."

"The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile."

"Let early education be a sort of amusement; you will then be better able to find out the natural bent."

"The learning and knowledge that we have, is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant."

"No human thing is of serious importance."

"Truth is the beginning of every good thing, both in Heaven and on earth."

"Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil."

"He who is not a good servant will not be a good master."

"The soul takes nothing with her to the next world but her education and her culture."

"He who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age."

"Only the dead have seen the end of war."

"The object of education is to teach us to love what is beautiful."

"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."

"False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil."

"Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something."

"Necessity is the mother of invention."

"The beginning is the most important part of the work."

"Excellence is not a gift, but a skill that takes practice."

"Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder."

"Thinking: the soul's talking to itself."

"The soul when thinking appears to me to be just talking—asking questions of herself and answering them, affirming and denying."

"There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help, and what they cannot."

"Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind."

"Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul."

"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. 229c"

"Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance."

"Education is teaching our children to desire the right things."

"My love, Alcibiades, which I hardly like to confess, would long ago have passed away, as I flatter myself, if I saw you loving your good things, or thinking that you ought to pass life in the enjoyment of them. Socrates speaking to Alcibiades"

"The part can never be well unless the whole is well."