Browse quotations by Plato with named works, context notes, meanings and recurring themes.
Focused collections bring together quotations from this author around one recurring idea.
“I shall obey God rather than you.”
Socrates presents moral and philosophical duty as more binding than compliance with pressure from political authority.
Source note: Apology, Jowett translation; Socrates says he would continue practicing philosophy even if acquittal were conditioned on silence.
“I neither know nor think that I know.”
Socrates locates a small advantage in recognizing the boundary of his own knowledge: uncertainty is intellectually healthier than possessing the same ignorance while mistaking it for wisdom.
Source note: Plato, Apology, Benjamin Jowett translation, Project Gutenberg #1656. Socrates says this after examining a politician whom others considered wise; the wording is dialogue speech attributed to Socrates within Plato’s work, not a claim that Socrates knew literally nothing.
“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
Socrates links a worthwhile human life with reflection on beliefs, conduct, and reasons rather than unexamined routine.
Source note: Apology 38a; wording varies by translation.
“The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways—I to die, and you to live.”
The closing sentence accepts the separation between life and death without claiming certainty about which condition is ultimately better.
Source note: Apology, final paragraph in Jowett’s translation; Socrates closes after the jury has sentenced him to death.
“I would rather die having spoken after my manner, than speak in your manner and live.”
Preserving truthful speech and character is valued above survival purchased by abandoning one’s principles merely to satisfy an audience.
Source note: Apology, Jowett translation; Socrates rejects saving himself through a style of pleading he considers unworthy.
“Then we must do no wrong?”
The brief question tests whether the previously accepted principle against wrongdoing still holds when obedience to it becomes personally costly.
Source note: Crito, Benjamin Jowett translation; Socrates is testing the moral premises that will govern his decision about escaping prison.
“But why, my dear Crito, should we care about the opinion of the many?”
Socrates challenges the idea that widespread approval should decide a moral question, directing attention toward informed judgment rather than numerical popularity.
Source note: Crito, Benjamin Jowett translation; Socrates responds to Crito’s concern about public opinion while awaiting execution.
“And is the soul seen or not seen?”
Socrates advances the dialogue by separating what can be perceived directly from what must be examined through argument, preparing the discussion of body and soul.
Source note: Phaedo, Benjamin Jowett translation; Socrates asks the question during the dialogue’s argument about visible bodies and the unseen soul.
“Then the soul is more like to the unseen, and the body to the seen?”
Within the dialogue’s metaphysical argument, Socrates associates soul with the unseen and body with the visible; the record preserves that historical philosophical context rather than treating it as established fact.
Source note: Phaedo, Benjamin Jowett translation; Socrates is reasoning with Cebes about visibility, mortality and the proposed nature of soul and body.
“the beauty of the mind is more honourable than the beauty of the outward form.”
The ascent described by Diotima shifts attention from outward appearance toward qualities of mind, making intellectual and moral beauty more important within this stage of the dialogue’s argument.
Source note: Symposium, Diotima’s ascent toward beauty as recounted by Socrates, Benjamin Jowett translation, Project Gutenberg #1600. This is one stage in an ancient philosophical account of beauty and love, not a modern psychological ranking of attractiveness.
“For love is the desire of the whole, and the pursuit of the whole is called love.”
Aristophanes presents love as a longing to recover wholeness, but the claim belongs to his deliberately mythic account of divided human beings rather than to a literal theory of human origins.
Source note: Symposium, Aristophanes’s speech, Benjamin Jowett translation, Project Gutenberg #1600. The sentence concludes the comic myth of humans split into halves; it is a speaker position inside Plato’s dialogue, not direct autobiography or anthropology by Plato.
“For wisdom is a most beautiful thing, and Love is of the beautiful; and therefore Love is also a philosopher or lover of wisdom”
Diotima links love with philosophy by treating wisdom as something beautiful that the lover does not fully possess but continues to seek, placing philosophical desire between ignorance and completed wisdom.
Source note: Symposium, Socrates recounting Diotima’s teaching, Benjamin Jowett translation, Project Gutenberg #1600. The represented wording belongs to Diotima’s account of Love as intermediate between the wise and the ignorant.
“For herein is the evil of ignorance, that he who is neither good nor wise is nevertheless satisfied with himself: he has no desire for that of which he feels no want.”
Ignorance becomes difficult to correct when a person feels no lack in understanding, because satisfaction with one’s present judgment removes the motivation to seek what is missing.
Source note: Symposium, Socrates recounting Diotima’s teaching, Benjamin Jowett translation, Project Gutenberg #1600. Diotima is a reported speaker within the dialogue; the passage is philosophical argument about ignorance and desire for wisdom.
“The beginning is the most important part of the work.”
Beginnings shape habits and direction, so the first stage of a serious undertaking deserves unusual care.
Source note: Traditional translation; exact wording varies by edition.
“Justice was doing one’s own business, and not being a busybody.”
Justice in the city is connected with people fulfilling appropriate responsibilities rather than constantly interfering in roles that are not theirs.
Source note: The Republic, Book IV; the statement summarizes a definition developed within Socrates’ argument about the ordered city.
“Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.”
Learning forced without engagement may fail to become durable understanding because the learner has not made the knowledge intellectually their own.
Source note: The Republic, Book VII, Jowett translation; Socrates argues that education should draw the mind rather than rely only on compulsion.
“Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity.”
Aesthetic excellence is linked with order and simplicity rather than decorative complexity for its own sake.
Source note: The Republic, Book III, Jowett translation; the passage connects musical and literary form with simplicity of character.
“The direction in which education starts a man, will determine his future life.”
Early education shapes habits of attention and judgment, so its direction can influence the kind of person someone later becomes.
Source note: The Republic, Book IV in Benjamin Jowett’s translation; the line appears during discussion of education and civic character.
“Opinion appears to you to be darker than knowledge, but lighter than ignorance?”
Opinion is treated as an intermediate state: it is not complete ignorance, but it also lacks the clarity and stability of knowledge.
Source note: The Republic, Book V; Socrates places opinion between knowledge and ignorance in the argument about what each apprehends.