Bits of Wisdom #4 : Plato
From the ancient till modern times, Greece has been the homeland for many important historical events and people who have marked the history of the country and have influenced the course of the world. People with talent, inspiration, and vision have set the grounds of modern civilization. Ancient thinkers words on life, success, courage and character hold true centuries later and can be just the pick-me-up we need, whatever the work day throws at us. The Ancient Greek philosophers used few words, 'quotes', to express pearls of wisdom that stand up today as guidelines for living wisely and compassionately.
PLATO
Philosopher of the 5th century BC
“Love is a serious mental disease”
“At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet”
“Love is the joy of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the Gods”
“Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet”
“Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something”
“Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and 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”
“The beginning is the most important part of the work”
“Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge”
“The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future in life”
“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation”
“Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others”
“Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws”
“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors”
“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”
“Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance”
“A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers”
“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, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands”
“Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty”
“All the gold which is under or upon the earth is not enough to give in exchange for virtue”
“Necessity... the mother of invention”
“There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help, and what they cannot”
“Thinking: the talking of the soul with itself”
“Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil”
“For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories”
“No man should bring children into the world who is unwilling to persevere to the end in their nature and education”
“The community which has neither poverty nor riches will always have the noblest principles”
“Only the dead have seen the end of war”
“Then not only an old man, but also a drunkard, becomes a second time a child”
“Any man may easily do harm, but not every man can do good to another”
“No one is a friend to his friend who does not love in return”
“Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand”
“He who steals a little steals with the same wish as he who steals much, but with less power”