Plato

The beginning is the most important part of the work.

Ignorance, the root and the stem of every evil.

As empty vessels make the loudest sound, so they that have least with are the greatest babblers.

Never discourage anyone...who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.

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.

Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety and life to everything. It is the essence of order, and leads to all that is god, just, and beautiful, of which it is the invisible, but never less, dazzaling, passionate, and eternal form.

For this invention of yours will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn it, by causing them to neglect their memory, inasmuch as, from their confidence in writing, they will recollect by the external aid of foreign symbols, and not by the internal use of their own faculties. Your discovery, therefore, is a medicine not for memory, but for recollection-for recalling to, not for keeping in mind.

Poetry comes nearer to vital truth than history.

Death is not the worst that can happen to men.

There is no such thing as a lover's oath.

The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government is to live under the government of worse men.

They certainly give very strange names to diseases.

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.

The qualities which a man seeks in his beloved are those characteristics of his own soul, whether he knows it or not.

Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.

Laws are partly formed for the sake of good men, in order to instruct them how they may live on friendly terms with one another, and partly for the sake of those who refuse to be instructed, whose spirit cannot be subdued, or softened, or hindered from plunging into evil.

If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.

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.

The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.

I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly combat.

The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things.

No law or ordinance is mightier than understanding.

Necessity, who is the mother of invention.

Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.

No man should bring children into the world who is unwilling to persevere to the end in their nature and education.

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

Honesty is for the most part, less profitable than dishonesty.

When men speak ill of thee, live so as nobody may believe them.

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.

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

We are twice armed if we fight with faith.

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.

Thinking is the talking of the soul with itself.

Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses.

No human thing is of serious importance.

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.

Knowledge is true opinion.

Justice will only exist where those not affected by injustice are filled with the same amount of indignation as those offended.

Only the dead have seen the end of war.

It will be hard to discover a better [method of education] than that which the experience of so many ages has already discovered, and this may be summed up as consisting in gymnastics for the body, and _music_ for the soul... For this reason is a musical education so essential; since it causes Rhythm and Harmony to penetrate most intimately into the soul, taking the strongest hold upon it, filling it with _beauty_ and making the man _beautiful-minded_.

If one has made a mistake, and fails to correct it, one has made a greater mistake.

Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten imparting grace.

And the only life which looks down upon the life of political ambition is that of true philosophy. Do you know of any other?

Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind's eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye; and he who remembers this when he sees any one whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to laugh; he will first ask whether that soul of man has come out of the brighter light, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness to the day is dazzled by excess of light.

Never discourage anyone... who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.

Just as it would be madness to settle on medical treatment for the body of a person by taking an opinion poll of the neighbors, so it is irrational to prescribe for the body politic by polling the opinions of the people at large.

Courage is knowing what not to fear.

Man...is a tame or civilized animal; never the less, he requires proper instruction and a fortunate nature, and then of all animals he becomes the most divine and most civilized; but if he be insufficiently or ill- educated he is the most savage of earthly creatures.