Plato Quotes

When two friends, like you and me, are in the mood to chat, we have to go about it in a gentler and more dialectical way. By 'more dialectical,' I mean not only that we give real responses, but that we base our responses solely on what the interlocutor admits that he himself knows.

When men speak ill of thee, live so as nobody may believe them.

When ideas are manipulated for personal ends, for class or group interests, the name for this is sophistry.

When I kiss Agathon my soul is on my lips, where it comes, poor thing, hoping to cross over.

When a person supposes that he knows, and does not know; this appears to be the great source of all the errors of the intellect.

When a man is out of his depth, whether he has fallen into a little swimming-bath or into mid-ocean, he has to swim all the same.

When a Benefit is wrongly conferred, the author of the Benefit may often be said to injure.

When [a man] thinks that he is reasoning he is really disputing, just because he cannot define and divide, and so know that of which he is speaking; and he will pursue a merely verbal opposition in the spirit of contention and not of fair discussion.

Whatever deceives men seems to produce a magical enchantment.

What you should do, said Socrates, is to say a magic spell over him every day until you have charmed his fears away.