5 quotations linked to Phaedo by or associated with Plato, with source notes, explanations and related topics.
Death, soul, courage, knowledge, perception, virtue and philosophical argument.
Dates represented in this collection: c. 4th century BCE · 4th century BCE. Individual quotation notes provide the most specific context for a passage.
The wording shown here follows the represented English edition or translation.
Translations and editions can differ in wording, punctuation and emphasis, so the source attached to each quotation matters when exact phrasing is important.
Use these links when you want to inspect the wording in its wider work or edition.
“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.
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.
Phaedo, Benjamin Jowett translation; Socrates is reasoning with Cebes about visibility, mortality and the proposed nature of soul and body.
“But now, inasmuch as the soul is manifestly immortal, there is no release or salvation from evil except the attainment of the highest virtue and wisdom.”
Near the end of the Phaedo, Socrates connects the way a person lives with the care and formation of the soul. His claim depends on an argument for immortality advanced inside the dialogue; it is a philosophical and religious position, not a scientific finding about an afterlife.
Plato, Phaedo, approximately 107c, Socrates addressing his companions after the arguments concerning the soul; Benjamin Jowett English, Gutenberg #1658. This sentence is in the dialogue proper, not the translator introduction. Preserve the surrounding conditional argument about the soul and historical belief in immortality.
“And I would ask you to be thinking of the truth and not of Socrates: agree with me, if I seem to you to be speaking the truth; or if not, withstand me might and main, that I may not deceive you as well as myself in my enthusiasm, and like the bee, leave my sting in you before I die.”
Facing death, Socrates asks his friends to challenge the argument he is defending if they find it mistaken. His emphasis is on testing whether a claim is true rather than accepting it because of the speaker’s reputation, even when that speaker is himself. The appeal belongs to a debate, not a universal guarantee that his view of the soul is correct.
Phaedo, approximately Stephanus 91b–c, Socrates speaking to Simmias and Cebes after their objections to the arguments about the soul’s survival. He specifically asks them to contradict him if they think his reasoning is wrong. This is a complete sentence from Benjamin Jowett’s English translation, Project Gutenberg #1658, in the dialogue after the translator’s separate introduction. Socrates is a character and local speaker; do not attribute the sentence as a direct personal remark by Plato.
“And thought is best when the mind is gathered into herself and none of these things trouble her—neither sounds nor sights nor pain nor any pleasure,—when she takes leave of the body, and has as little as possible to do with it, when she has no bodily sense or desire, but is aspiring after true being?”
Socrates argues that philosophical reflection is clearest when bodily sensations do not distract the soul from its inquiry. This belongs to his metaphysical case about knowledge, body and soul on the day of his death; it should not be confused with a modern scientific finding about the brain or with a general prohibition on sensory experience.
Plato, Phaedo, approximately 65c–d; Socrates speaking with Simmias about the philosopher’s pursuit of true being and the limits of bodily perception. Benjamin Jowett English, Project Gutenberg #1658, dramatic text (not the editorial introduction).
