Plato Quotes by Alfred Lord Tennyson, Francois Viete, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas McEvilley, Peter Ackroyd, George Berkeley and many others.
Nor at all can tell Whether I mean this day to end myself, Or lend an ear to Plato where he says, That men like soldiers may not quit the post Allotted by the Gods.
There is a certain way of searching for the truth in mathematics that Plato is said first to have discovered. Theon called this analysis.
Nothing can be colder than his head, when the lightnings of his imagination are playing in the sky.
Plato feels that ethical abstinences and austerities are essential preconditions for the cleansing and opening of the eye of the soul.
In ‘The Plato Papers’ I wanted to get another perspective on the present moment by extrapolating into the distant future. So in that sense, there’s a definite similarity of purpose between a book set in the future and a book set in the past.
Where the people are well educated, the art of piloting a state is best learned from the writings of Plato.
I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning.
When something goes wrong, accuse yourself first. Even the wisdom of Plato or Solomon can wobble and go blind
Plato is my friend, but truth is a better friend.
Ignorance, the root and the stem of every evil.
It is by no means certain that we advance our philosophical quest by reading Plato or Aristotle. It may increase our knowledge of history but not of the world.
When we are exalted by ideas, we do not owe this to Plato, but to the idea, to which also Plato was debtor.
It is true, indeed, that the account Plato gives in ‘Timaeus’ is different from what he says in his so-called ‘unwritten teachings.’
First and foremost, note that Plato always wrote dialogues, and never attempted to produce a theoretical or scientific treatise. This is a big clue for me. From beginning to end, Plato was aware of the limits of theoretical and technical reasoning, and his dialogues are a massive exploration.
Plato was right, but not quite right.
The Gospels were not thought of as works of literature. People were not concerned with the literary reputation of Matthew or Mark, but with the substance of their records of our Lord’s life. They did not have to respect their actual words, as they would if they were transcribing the works of Thucydides or Plato.
Those who intend on becoming great should love neither themselves or their own things, but only what is just, whether it happens to be done by themselves or others.
