Browse 7 quotations connecting Plato with Inspirational, with meanings, source notes and related themes.
Sources represented here include Apology, Laches, The Republic.
“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.
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.
Apology, Jowett translation; Socrates rejects saving himself through a style of pleading he considers unworthy.
“I mean to say, Laches, that courage is the knowledge of that which inspires fear or confidence in war, or in anything.”
Nicias suggests that courageous judgment depends on understanding when danger deserves fear and when there is reason for confidence. Laches disputes the link between courage and specialized knowledge, and Socrates presses Nicias on what knowledge of future good or evil entails. It remains a hypothesis under examination, not a definitive philosophical verdict.
Laches, around Stephanus 194e–195a, Benjamin Jowett English, Project Gutenberg #1584. Nicias speaks to Laches after Socrates invites an alternative to Laches’s endurance account; subsequent questioning probes the scope of knowledge about fear and hope and leaves the inquiry unresolved. The local dramatic speaker is Nicias, not Plato personally. The wording occurs in the dialogue body, not Jowett’s introduction.
“I should say that courage is a sort of endurance of the soul, if I am to speak of the universal nature which pervades them all.”
Laches proposes endurance of the soul as a feature shared by different courageous acts, not only by soldiers who hold their ground. Socrates immediately tests this definition and asks whether stubborn endurance without wisdom can be harmful. The dialogue does not endorse endurance alone as a final, sufficient definition of courage.
Laches, roughly Stephanus 192b–c, Benjamin Jowett English, Project Gutenberg #1584. Laches answers Socrates’s attempt to define courage beyond battlefield conduct; Socrates then challenges whether foolish endurance can count as courageous. The local dramatic speaker is Laches, not Socrates or Plato himself. This is a contested proposal inside an unresolved inquiry, not Plato’s stand-alone creed.
“And we, on our part, will prove in answer to him that the madness of love is the greatest of heaven's blessings, and the proof shall be one which the wise will receive, and the witling disbelieve.”
Socrates reverses his earlier criticism of lovers by proposing that some kinds of inspired passion can be gifts rather than failings. His defense belongs to a mythical and philosophical speech, not to a claim that impulsive behavior is automatically beneficial or justified.
Phaedrus, around Stephanus 245b–c, in Socrates’s second speech (palinode) to Phaedrus following his retraction of the anti-lover argument. Benjamin Jowett English, Project Gutenberg #1636; the complete sentence occurs in the dramatic speech after examples of prophetic, religious and poetic inspiration. The divine origin of love is a claim of this ancient philosophical argument, not independently established evidence.
“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.
The Republic, Book II, Benjamin Jowett translation. The retained catalog wording is a shortened common form of Jowett’s longer sentence, “the beginning is the most important part of any work, especially in the case of a young and tender thing”; it should not be presented as a verbatim full sentence from the represented edition.
“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.
The Republic, Book IV in Benjamin Jowett’s translation; the line appears during discussion of education and civic character.
