Plato's Ideas on Leadership and Society
Plato is considered to be the first political philosopher of the Western world. His political thought is full of the message of human welfare. In style, he was perhaps the last to advocate that the state should be ruled not by the richest, most ambitious or most cunning, but by the most intelligent.
Who was Plato?
Before knowing about Plato quotes it is very important for you to know about Plato. Plato was one of the great philosophers of ancient Greece. He was born in Athens around 428 BC. He belonged to an aristocratic family and was given the best education of that time. He was a disciple of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle. These three philosophers together prepared the philosophical basis of Western culture.
Top 50 Plato Quotes
1. “Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.” ― Plato
2. “The beginning is the most important part of the work.” ― Plato
3. “No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth.” ― Plato
4. “Necessity is the mother of invention.” ― Plato
5. “You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” ― Plato
6. “A house that has a library in it has a soul.” ― Plato
7. “Happiness springs from doing good and helping others.” ― Plato
8. “Only the dead have seen the end of war.” ― Plato
9. “Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.” ― Plato
10. “The measure of a man is what he does with power.” ― Plato
11. “The first and best victory is to conquer self.” ― Plato
12. “In order for man to succeed in life, God provided him with two means, education and physical activity. Not separately, one for the soul and the other for the body, but for the two together. With these means, man can attain perfection.” ― Plato
13. “Ignorance, the root and the stem of every evil.” ― Plato
14. “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.” ― Plato
15. “The worst form of injustice is pretended justice.” ― Plato
16. “Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.” ― Plato
17. “The greatest wealth is to live content with little.” ― Plato
18. “An empty vessel makes the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers.” ― Plato
19. “To conquer oneself is the best and noblest victory; to be vanquished by one’s own nature is the worst and most ignoble defeat.” ― Plato
20. “Education is teaching our children to desire the right things.” ― Plato
21. “He who is not a good servant will not be a good master.” ― Plato
22. “There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain.” ― Plato
23. “I’m trying to think, don’t confuse me with facts.” ― Plato
24. “Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety.” ― Plato
25. “The wise man will want to be ever with him who is better than himself.” ― Plato
26. “Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.” ― Plato
27. “You should not honor men more than truth.” ― Plato
28. “A hero is born among a hundred, a wise man is found among a thousand, but an accomplished one might not be found even among a hundred thousand men.” ― Plato
29. “At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.” ― Plato
30. “There should exist among the citizens neither extreme poverty nor again excessive wealth, for both are productive of great evil.” ― Plato
31. “The most virtuous are those who content themselves with being virtuous without seeking to appear so.” ― Plato
32. “If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.” ― Plato
33. “All the gold which is under or upon the earth is not enough to give in exchange for virtue.” ― Plato
34. “For this feeling of wonder shows that you are a philosopher, since wonder is the only beginning of philosophy.” ― Plato
35. “Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion has no hold on the mind. Therefore do not use compulsion, but let early education be a sort of amusement; you will then be better able to discover the child’s natural bent.” ― Plato
36. "For to fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise without really being wise, for it is to think that we know what we do not know. For no one knows whether death may not be the greatest good that can happen to man." ― Plato
37. “But a man whose actions do not agree with his words is an annoyance to me; and the better he speaks the more I hate him, and then I seem to be a hater of discourse.” ― Plato
38. “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.” ― Plato
39. “Never discourage anyone...who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.” ― Plato
40. “Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others. ” ― Plato
41. “Nothing beautiful without struggle.” ― Plato
42. “True friendship can exist only between equals.” ― Plato
43. “No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth.” ― Plato
44. “Knowledge is the food of the soul.” ― Plato
45. “Ideas are the source of all things” ― Plato
46. “The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future life” ― Plato
47. “Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous.” ― Plato
48. “We do not learn, and that what we call learning is only a process of recollection.” ― Plato
49. “Be kind, because everyone is having a really hard time.” ― Plato
50. “He who wishes to serve his country must have not only the power to think, but the will to act” ― Plato
