"Let him know how to choose the mean and avoid the extremes on either side, as far as possible. . . . For this is the way of happiness."
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Plato quotes (page 14 of 48)
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"Whatever deceives men seems to produce a magical enchantment."
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"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."
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"Numbers are the highest degree of knowledge. It is knowledge itself."
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"God is not the author of all things, but of good only."
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". . . you did not seem to me over-fond of money. And this is the way in general with those who have not made it themselves, while those who have are twice as fond of it as anyone else. For just as poets are fond of their own poems, and fathers of their own children, so money-makers become devoted to money, not only because, like other people, they find it useful, but because it's their own creation."
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"Because, unlike courage and wisdom, which made our state brave and wise by being present in a particular part of it, discipline operates by being diffused throughout the whole of it. It produces a concord between its strongest and weakest and middle elements, whether you define them by the standard of good sense, or of strength, or of numbers or money or the like. And so we are quite justified in regarding discipline as this sort of natural harmony and agreement between higher and lower about which of them is to rule in state and individual."
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"The judge should not be young, he should have learned to know evil, not from his own soul, but from late and long observation of the nature of evil in others."
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"Those who reproach injustice do so because they are afraid not of doing it but of suffering it."
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"The god, O men, seems to me to be really wise; and by his oracle to mean this, that the wisdom of this world is foolishness and of none effect."
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"The honour of parents is a fair and noble treasure to their posterity, but to have the use of a treasure of wealth and honour, and to leave none to your successors, because you have neither money nor reputation of your own, is alike base and dishonourable."
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"...in every man there is an eye of the soul, which...is more precious far than ten thousand bodily eyes, for by it alone is truth seen."
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"When men speak ill of thee, live so that nobody will believe them."
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"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."
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"There will be no end to the troubles of states,Or of humanity itself,Till philosophers become kings in this world,Or till those we now call kings and rulers really And truly become philosophers"
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"There is no such thing as a lovers' oath."
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"If a man be endowed with a generous mind, this is the best kind of nobility."
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"Courage is knowing what to fear."
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"For neither does wealth bring honour to the owner, if he be a coward; of such a one the wealth belongs to another, and not to himself. Nor does beauty and strength of body, when dwelling in a base and cowardly man, appear comely, but the reverse of comely, making the possessor more conspicuous, and manifesting forth his cowardice."
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"Life should be lived as play."
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