Plato on Wisdom Quotes

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

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

"The first and best victory is to conquer self."

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

"Wealth is the parent of luxury and indolence, and poverty of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent."

"To think is to converse with oneself."

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

"Wisdom alone is the true coin with which we ought to exchange all other things."

"Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge."

"εὖ ἂν ἔχοι ... εἰ τοιοῦτον εἴη ἡ σοφία ὥστ᾽ ἐκ τοῦ πληρεστέρου εἰς τὸ κενώτερον ῥεῖν ἡμῶν... I only wish that wisdom were the kind of thing that flowed … from the vessel that was full to the one that was empty."

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

"Love is a serious mental disease."

"There is no harm in repeating a good thing."

"A state is what it is because its citizens are what they are."

"The measure of a man is what he does with power."

"The wisdom which knows what are and are not dangers is opposed to the ignorance of them 360d, Benjamin Jowett, trans."

"The most important part of education is right training in the nursery."

"The excessive increase of anything causes a reaction in the opposite direction."

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

"Excess of liberty, whether it lies in Nations or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of servitude."

"Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty."

"Neither human wisdom nor divine inspiration can confer upon man any greater blessing than this [live a life of happiness and harmony here on earth]. 256b"

"Let parents bequeath to their children not riches, but the spirit of reverence."

"Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance."

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

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

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

"Virtue is not given by money, but from virtue comes money and every other good of man, public as well as private."

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

"Courage is knowing what not to fear."

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

"He who is of a 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."

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