Only the dead have seen the end of war.
The
hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways - I to die, and
you to live. Which is better God only knows.
The life which is unexamined
is not worth living.
You cannot conceive the many without the one.
False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul
with evil.
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.
Friends have all things in common.
The greatest
penalty of evildoing - namely, to grow into the likeness of bad men.
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.
Astronomy
compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another.
Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge
which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.
Everything
that deceives may be said to enchant.
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.
I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning.
Mankind censure injustice fearing that they may be the victims of
it, and not because they shrink from committing it.
The beginning
is the most important part of the work.
The direction in which education
starts a man will determine his future life.
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.
The soul of man is immortal and imperishable.
There are three arts which are concerned with all things: one which
uses, another which makes, and a third which imitates them.
Wealth
is the parent of luxury and indolence, and poverty of meanness and
viciousness, and both of discontent.
When there is an income tax, the
just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income.
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 i acquired under compulsion
obtains no hold on the mind.
Necessity, who is the mother of invention.
Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they
have to say something.
One of the penalties for refusing to participate
in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
You
can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year
of conversation.
The most effective kind of education is that a child
should play amongst lovely things.
But, my dearest Agathon, it is
truth which you cannot contradict; you can without any difficulty
contradict Socrates.
Attention to health is life's greatest hindrance.
He who does not desire power is fit to hold it.
He was a wise man
who invented God.
Those who are too smart to engage in politics are
punished by being governed by those who are dumber.
Of all the animals, the boy
is the most unmanageable.
...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...
Philosophy is the highest music.
Thinking is the talking of the soul
with itself.
As empty vessels make the loudest sound, so they that
have least with are the greatest babblers.
Poetry comes nearer to
vital truth than history.
I exhort you also to take part in the great
combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other
earthly combat.
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.
We are twice armed if we fight with faith.
Those who are able to see beyond the shadows
and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed,
by the masses.
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.
The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part
in the government is to live under the government of worse 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.
Attention to health
is life's greatest hindrance.
Those who are too smart to engage in
politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.
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.
Good
people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad
people will find a way around the laws.