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243 collected words

Plato

Life dates uncertain

Athenian philosophical writer whose dialogues ask readers to examine arguments and speakers. Supplied archive attributions remain distinct from the checked reading edition.

▷ Play this voiceSearch these words ↗Place in time ↗friendshipjusticedeathtruthwealthpatiencecharacterlove

Life and writing

Plato wrote philosophical discussions that give questions a setting and different speakers. Socrates often leads an exchange, but the literary speaker should not simply be identified with Plato or treated as a transcript of the historical Socrates. A sentence gains meaning from the objection, example or response around it. The reference gives an uncertain ancient birth year; this profile keeps the archive’s exact life dates unset.

The linked Republic is Benjamin Jowett’s English translation. Book II considers education and the importance of beginnings; Book V examines opinion in relation to knowledge and ignorance. Follow a complete exchange and ask who proposes the claim and how it is tested. These passages offer context for the selected themes without making a supplied shortened quotation an authenticated extract from this edition.

Reading this voice

Begin with one exchange in Books II or V of The Republic, separating the dialogue from Jowett’s introductory analysis. The two selected contributor passages concern beginnings and opinion; their wording and source records remain unchanged. They are undated and independently unverified. A biography or related book cannot authenticate all 243 entries under this label or supply their composition dates. Precise life dates are not asserted here.

Subjects to explore

knowledgejusticelearningjudgement

Words to begin with

Quotations and sayings

02Undated
Imagine that the keeper of a huge, strong beast notices what makes it angry, what it desires, how it has to be approached and handled, the circumstances and the conditions under which it becomes particularly fierce or calm, what provokes its typical cries, and what tones of voice make it gentle or wild. Once he's spent enough time in the creature's company to acquire all this information, he calls it knowledge, forms it into a systematic branch of expertise, and starts to teach it, despite total ignorance, in fact, about which of the creature's attitudes and desires is commendable or deplorable, good or bad, moral or immoral. His usage of all these terms simply conforms to the great beast's attitudes, and he describes things as good or bad according to its likes and dislikes, and can't justify his usage of the terms any further, but describes as right and good the things which are merely indispensable, since he hasn't realised and can't explain to anyone else how vast a gulf there is between necessity and goodness.
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03Undated
Nor when love is of this disinterested sort is there any disgrace in being deceived, but in every other case there is equal disgrace in being or not being deceived. For he who is gracious to his lover under the impression that he is rich, and is disappointed of his gains because he turns out to be poor, is disgraced all the same: for he has done his best to show that he would give himself up to any one's "uses base" for the sake of money; but this is not honourable. And on the same principle he who gives himself to a lover because he is a good man, and in the hope that he will be improved by his company, shows himself to be virtuous, even though the object of his affection turn out to be a villain, and to have no virtue; and if he is deceived he has committed a noble error. For he has proved that for his part he will do anything for anybody with a view to virtue and improvement, than which there can be nothing nobler.
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05Undated
For many generations…they obeyed the laws and loved the divine to which they were akin…they reckoned that qualities of character were far more important than their present prosperity. So they bore the burden of their wealth and possessions lightly, and did not let their high standard of living intoxicate them or make them lose their self-control…But when the divine element in them became weakened…and their human traits became predominant, they ceased to be able to carry their prosperity with moderation.
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14Undated
Many are the noble words in which poets speak concerning the actions of men; but like yourself when speaking about Homer, they do not speak of them by any rules of art: they are simply inspired to utter that to which the Muse impels them, and that only; and when inspired, one of them will make dithyrambs, another hymns of praise, another choral strains, another epic or iambic verses- and he who is good at one is not good any other kind of verse: for not by art does the poet sing, but by power divine.
Plato / quote
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