Plato Quotes
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. The quotes below are attributed to Plato, organized by topic.
Plato on Death
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Attributed to Plato:
“Death is not the worst that can happen to men.”
Plato on Happiness
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Attributed to Plato:
“He who is of calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age.”
Plato on Justice
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Attributed to Plato:
“Justice means minding one's own business and not meddling with other men's concerns.”
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Attributed to Plato:
“Mankind censures injustice fearing they may be the victim of it, not because they shrink from committing it.”
Plato on Knowledge
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Attributed to Plato:
“Necessity is the mother of invention.”
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Attributed to Plato:
“Philosophy begins in wonder.”
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Attributed to Plato:
“Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another.”
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Attributed to Plato:
“Geometry will draw the soul toward truth and create the spirit of philosophy.”
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Attributed to Plato:
“Ignorance is the root and stem of every evil.”
Plato on Life
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Attributed to Plato:
“The beginning is the most important part of the work.”
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Attributed to Plato:
“Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.”
Plato on Mind
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Attributed to Plato:
“When the mind is thinking, it is talking to itself.”
Plato on Politics
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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.”
Things actually not said by Plato
A number of widely-shared lines are circulated as Plato but are in fact from someone else. Did Plato say these? No. Each entry below pairs the line with the person who actually wrote it.
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Did Plato say this? No.
“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.
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Did Plato say this? No.
“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.
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Did Plato say this? No.
“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.