Plato
Plato
Platowas a philosopher in Classical Greece and the founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. He is widely considered the most pivotal figure in the development of philosophy, especially the Western tradition. Unlike nearly all of his philosophical contemporaries, Plato's entire œuvre is believed to have survived intact for over 2,400 years...
NationalityGreek
ProfessionPhilosopher
queens sculpture tides
The Paphian Queen to Cnidos made repair Across the tide to see her image there: Then looking up and round the prospect wide, When did Praxiteles see me thus? she cried.
art plato numbers
I can show you that the art of calculation has to do with odd and even numbers in their numerical relations to themselves and to each other.
plato speak slander
Let nobody speak mischief of anybody.
plato skins pieces
The Earth is like one of those balls made of twelve pieces of skin.
men water-of-life doctrine
A man's duty is to find out where the truth is, or if he cannot, at least to take the best possible human doctrine and the hardest to disprove, and to ride on this like a raft over the waters of life.
light poetry able
for a poet is a light and winged thing, and holy, and never able to compose until he has become inspired, and is beside himself, and reason is no longer in him.
art taken play
And yet the artist will go on with his work without knowing in some way if any of his representations are sound or unsound. The artist knows nothing worth mentioning about the subjects he represents, and that art is a form of play, not to be taken seriously.
running strong thinking
But this is not difficult, O Athenians! to escape death; but it is much more difficult to avoid depravity, for it runs swifter than death. And now I, being slow and aged, am overtaken by the slower of the two; but my accusers, being strong and active, have been overtaken by the swifter, wickedness. And now I depart, condemned by you to death; but they condemned by truth, as guilty of iniquity and injustice: and I abide my sentence, and so do they. These things, perhaps, ought so to be, and I think that they are for the best.
beauty beautiful youth
For he who would proceed aright... should begin in youth to visit beautiful forms... out of that he should create fair thoughts; and soon he will of himself perceive that the beauty of one form is akin to the beauty of another, and that beauty in every form is one and the same.
art perfection ends
Art has no end but its own perfection.
philosophy philosopher affection
Wonder [said Socrates] is very much the affection of a philosopher; for there is no other beginning of philosophy than this.
plato kind given
Arithmetic is a kind of knowledge in which the best natures should be trained, and which must not be given up.
plato men intelligent
No intelligent man will ever be so bold as to put into language those things which his reason has contemplated.
mouths common life-is
It is a common saying, and in everybody's mouth, that life is but a sojourn.