Source identified
Read & copy the quotation
“And I have shown this of all inspirations to be the noblest and highest and the offspring of the highest to him who has or shares in it, and that he who loves the beautiful is called a lover because he partakes of it.”
- Source
- Phaedrus
- Date
- 4th century BCE
- Local voice
- Dialogue speaker · Socrates
Meaning of “And I have shown this of all inspirations…”
In Socrates’s myth of the soul, attraction to visible beauty can awaken memory of a higher beauty. The language of inspiration describes the philosophical ascent imagined by the dialogue; it does not reduce love to appearance or imply that a person literally remembers another lifetime.
Where does it come from?
Phaedrus, around Stephanus 249d–e, Socrates’s palinode and description of inspired recollection of true beauty. Benjamin Jowett English, Project Gutenberg #1636. This is Socrates speaking in Plato’s dialogue; the claim comes after his charioteer-and-soul allegory and should not be extracted as a universal account of romance.
Why the local voice matters
Phaedrus, Jowett translation; Socrates is a character speaking inside this dialogue, not Plato as a direct historical speaker.
