Plato 428 BC – 348 BC
Plato (428 BC – 348 BC) was a Greek philosopher of the Ancient era, associated with Platonism and Ancient Greek Philosophy.
Plato was an Athenian philosopher and the founder of the Academy, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. A student of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle, he wrote dialogues exploring justice, beauty, knowledge, and the nature of reality. His theory of Forms posits a realm of perfect, immutable abstractions underlying the changing physical world. The Republic, Phaedo, and Symposium remain among the most influential texts in philosophy. His thought defined the agenda of metaphysics and political theory for centuries.
Plato was born around 428 BC into an aristocratic Athenian family with deep ties to the city's political life. He encountered Socrates as a young man and was profoundly affected by Socrates's trial and execution in 399 BC, which marked Plato's break with practical politics and his commitment to philosophy.
Plato founded the Academy around 387 BC — the first sustained institution of higher learning in the Western tradition — and wrote the dialogues that constitute the entire surviving record of his thought. The Republic, the Symposium, the Phaedo, the Phaedrus, the Theaetetus, the Sophist, and the Timaeus are among the most influential works in the history of philosophy. The dialogue form itself was Plato's invention as a philosophical genre: most of his works dramatize Socratic conversations, and the historical line between Socrates's views and Plato's own remains one of the central interpretive questions in ancient philosophy.
Plato's mature metaphysics centers on the theory of Forms — eternal, unchanging realities of which sensible things are imperfect images. His political philosophy, especially in the Republic, ties just ordering of soul and city to philosophical knowledge. His influence on subsequent philosophy is so pervasive that Whitehead's quip — that all of Western philosophy is footnotes to Plato — is at least defensible. He died around 347 BC.
Key facts
- Nationality
- Greek
- Era
- Ancient
- Movements
- Platonism, Ancient Greek Philosophy
Selected quotes
-
“The beginning is the most important part of the work.”
The beginning in every task is the chief thing. -
Attributed to Plato:
“Necessity is the mother of invention.”
-
“Philosophy begins in wonder.”
155d, The Dialogues of Plato , Volume 3, 1871, p. 377 -
Attributed to Plato:
“Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, cities will never have rest from their evils.”
-
Attributed to Plato:
“Justice means minding one's own business and not meddling with other men's concerns.”
Plato by topic
Plato vs other philosophers
Three-way comparisons including Plato
Frequently asked about Plato
- When did Plato live?
- Plato was born in 428 BC and died in 348 BC.
- Where was Plato from?
- Plato was a Greek philosopher of the Ancient era.
- What philosophical movements is Plato associated with?
- Plato was associated with Platonism and Ancient Greek Philosophy.
- What was Plato known for?
- Plato was an Athenian philosopher and the founder of the Academy, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world.
- How many quotes are attributed to Plato?
- There are 23 attributed quotations from Plato in the 1001Philosophers collection, organized by topic.
Quotes that are not actually from Plato
These lines are widely circulated as Plato, but they do not appear in Plato's works. Each entry below identifies the actual source.
-
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
This line was written by the Scottish minister and author John Watson, under the pen name Ian MacLaren, in an 1897 Christmas message published in The British Weekly. The original phrasing was 'Be pitiful, for every man is fighting a hard battle.' It has been misattributed to Plato, Socrates, Philo of Alexandria, and others, but does not appear in any of their works.
-
“Only the dead have seen the end of war.”
This line appears in George Santayana's Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies (1922). The misattribution to Plato was popularised in part by the 2001 film Black Hawk Down, which displays the line on screen as a quote from Plato. It does not appear in any of Plato's dialogues.
-
“Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.”
This aphorism is widely circulated as Plato but does not appear in any of his dialogues. Its earliest verifiable English-language appearances are in 20th-century quotation compilations, with no underlying classical source identified.
-
“Atheism is a disease of the soul, before it becomes an error of the understanding.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but the actual source is William Fleming. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Misattributed to Plato in Laws by Conservapedia . Actual source: William Fleming , as quoted in Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay by Samuel Austin Allibone, 1816–1889.
-
“Watch a man at play for an hour and you can learn more about him than in talking to him for a year.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Attributed to Plato in Confidence : How to Succeed at Being Yourself (1987) by Alan Loy McGinnis, this is probably a paraphrase of a statement which occurs in Letter of Advice to a Young Gentleman Leaving the University Concerning His Behaviour and Conversation in the World (1907) by Richard Lindgar
-
“Necessity is the mother of invention.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Commonly misattributed due to Benjamin Jowett 's popular idiomatic translation (1871) of Plato's Republic , Book II, 369c as "The true creator is necessity, who is the mother of our invention." Jowett's translation is noted for injecting flowery, if not florid, language familiar to his Victorian era
-
“Music is a moral law. It 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 good, just, and beautiful, of which it is the invisible, but nevertheless dazzling, passionate, and eternal form.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: This quotation is not known to exist in Plato's writings. It apparently first appeared as a quotation attributed to Plato in The Pleasures of Life, Part II by Sir John Lubbock (Macmillan and Company, London and New York), published in 1889.
-
“Wisdom begins in wonder.”
The exact phrase 'wisdom begins in wonder' does not appear in any surviving Greek text. The closest source is Plato's Theaetetus 155d, where Socrates says 'wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder' — a related but distinct claim. Aristotle's Metaphysics 982b makes a similar point. The modern English compression is not a direct translation of either.
-
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
The line appears in the 1897 Christmas issue of British magazine The British Weekly under the pen name Ian Maclaren (the Scottish minister and author John Watson). It has nothing to do with Plato or Philo of Alexandria, despite frequent misattribution to both. The Quote Investigator and Garson O'Toole have documented the actual source in detail.
-
“Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.”
This line is regularly attributed to Plato but does not appear in any of his dialogues. The earliest known appearance is in the 1903 essay collection Old Friends and New by Sarah Orne Jewett, where it is presented as a folk aphorism. There is no Greek original; the diction is modern English.
-
“Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil.”
Plato's dialogues contain related sentiments — the Socratic doctrine that no one does evil knowingly — but the exact phrasing 'ignorance, the root and stem of all evil' is not from any Platonic dialogue. The closest sources are the Meno and the Protagoras, which argue that virtue is knowledge, not the much more general claim about evil that the popular line implies.
-
“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.”
This line is universally attributed to Plato but does not appear in any of his surviving dialogues. Plato's discussions of music in the Republic, the Laws, and the Timaeus take a quite different view — emphasizing music's power to shape the soul for better or worse and the need for political regulation of musical modes. The popular quote is twentieth-century motivational literature, not Plato.
-
“You can learn more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.”
Attributed to Plato in Food Is the Frosting-Company Is the Cake (2007) by Maggie Marshall
-
“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.”
This quotation, often attributed on the Internet to Plato, cannot be found in any of Plato's writings, nor can it be found in any published work anywhere until recent years. If it really were a quotation by Plato, then some author in the recorded literature of the last several centuries would have mentioned that quote, but they did not. The sentiment isn't new, however. The ancient Roman Seneca, in his work on "Morals," quoted an earlier Roman writer, Lucretius (who wrote about the year 50 B.C.), as saying "we are as much afraid in the light as children in the dark." (Seneca was paraphrasing a longer passage by Lucretius from De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things), Book II, lines 56 et…
-
“Empathy is the highest form of knowledge. (Sometimes this appears as ‘Empathy is the highest form of knowledge, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another's world’.)”
Very common online pop-psychological slogan which has been traced no further than a graduation speech to students at San Francisco University High School given by Bill Bullard, who within the speech attributes it to George Eliot. For the Faculty . The atttribution to Eliot seems likewise to be false.
-
“Successful people never worry about what others are doing.”
Alleged source in Plato unknown. Earliest occurrence to have been located is a Tweet from 2011 . (Disputed.)
-
“Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they would like to say something. As empty vessels make the loudest sounds, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers.”
Often attributed to Plato, it cannot be found completely in any of his writings ( see this ). The quote is attributed to Plato in A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, Both Ancient and Modern (page 560) by Tryon Edwards . In the Symposium (see above) Plato likens empty vessels to fools for their lack of content, but says nothing of their sound, because clay vessels and not wooden vessels were commonly used in the day of Plato, and the popular common saying about empty barrels would have become common knowledge only once the wooden barrel later had become a standard vessel type. In the Laches (see above) Plato includes a… (Disputed.)
-
“The highest form of pure thought is in mathematics.”
Also attributed on quote sites without a source, and can be found in some recent non-academic books but also without a source, and google books shows no examples of the quote in any 20th century book . Earliest example found is a usenet post from 11 April 1990 . (Disputed.)