Plato quotes on justice

SOCRATES: What, then, is justice but that better, of which I spoke, in going to war or not going to war with those against whom we ought or ought not, and when we ought or ought not to go to war? ALCIBIADES: Clearly
Source: Plato, Alcibiades

The idea is inconceivable that the Gods have regard, not to the justice and purity of our souls, but to costly processions and sacrifices, which men may celebrate year after year, although they have committed innumerable crimes against the Gods or against their fellow-men or the state
Source: Plato, Alcibiades II

No, by heaven! but I shall use the words and arguments which occur to me at the moment; for I am confident in the justice of my cause (Or, I am certain that I am right in taking this course.): at my time of life I ought not to be appearing before you, O men of Athens, in the character of a juvenile orator--let no one expect it of me
Source: Plato, Alcibiades II

Thus far, as I was saying, there is a general agreement about the nature of justice; but I, Hermogenes, being an enthusiastic disciple, have been told in a mystery that the justice of which I am speaking is also the cause of the world: now a cause is that because of which anything is created; and some one comes and whispers in my ear that justice is rightly so called because partaking of the nature of the cause, and I begin, after hearing what he has said, to interrogate him gently: 'Well, my excellent friend,' say I, 'but if all this be true, I still want to know what is justice.' Thereupon they think that I ask tiresome questions, and am leaping over the barriers, and have been already sufficiently answered, and they try to satisfy me with one derivation after another, and at length they quarrel
Source: Plato, Cratylus

SOCRATES: Very good; and is not this true, Crito, of other things which we need not separately enumerate? In questions of just and unjust, fair and foul, good and evil, which are the subjects of our present consultation, ought we to follow the opinion of the many and to fear them; or the opinion of the one man who has understanding? ought we not to fear and

SOCRATES: And the gods are in the same case, if as you assert they quarrel about just and unjust, and some of them say while others deny that injustice is done among them
Source: Plato, Euthyphro

SOCRATES: But now we are affirming that the aforesaid rhetorician will never have done injustice at all? GORGIAS: True
Source: Plato, Gorgias

'Certainly he does.' But we contend that there are men better far than your heroes, Tyrtaeus, concerning whom another poet, Theognis the Sicilian, says that 'in a civil broil they are worth their weight in gold and silver.' For in a civil war, not only courage, but justice and temperance and wisdom are required, and all virtue is better than a part
Source: Plato, Laws

Please to answer once more: Is not justice a power, or knowledge, or both? Must not justice, at all events, be one of these? HIPPIAS: Yes
Source: Plato, Lesser Hippias

And ought not the country which the Gods praise to be praised by all mankind? The second praise which may be fairly claimed by her, is that at the time when the whole earth was sending forth and creating diverse animals, tame and wild, she our mother was free and pure from savage monsters, and out of all animals selected and brought forth man, who is superior to the rest in understanding, and alone has justice and religion
Source: Plato, Menexenus

Yet once more, fair friend; according to you, virtue is 'the power of governing;' but do you not add 'justly and not unjustly'? MENO: Yes, Socrates; I agree there; for justice is virtue
Source: Plato, Meno

But I should like to know whether you mean that there are certain ideas of which all other things partake, and from which they derive their names; that similars, for example, become similar, because they partake of similarity; and great things become great, because they partake of greatness; and that just and beautiful things become just and beautiful, because they partake of justice and beauty? Yes, certainly, said Socrates that is my meaning
Source: Plato, Parmenides

O my blessed Simmias, is there not one true coin for which all things ought to be exchanged?--and that is wisdom; and only in exchange for this, and in company with this, is anything truly bought or sold, whether courage or temperance or justice
Source: Plato, Phaedo The Last Hours Of Socrates

PHAEDRUS: What do you mean, my good Socrates? How can you imagine that my unpractised memory can do justice to an elaborate work, which the greatest rhetorician of the age spent a long time in composing
Source: Plato, Phaedrus

But even admitting that, like the pleasures, they are opposite as well as different, should I be worthy of the name of dialectician if, in order to avoid this difficulty, I were to say (as you are saying of pleasure) that there is no difference between one science and another;--would not the argument founder and disappear like an idle tale, although we might ourselves escape drowning by clinging to a fallacy? PROTARCHUS: May none of this befal us, except the deliverance! Yet I like the even-handed justice which is applied to both our arguments
Source: Plato, Philebus

Zeus feared that the entire race would be exterminated, and so he sent Hermes to them, bearing reverence and justice to be the ordering principles of cities and the bonds of friendship and conciliation
Source: Plato, Protagoras

STRANGER: But that which proceeds by rules of art to dispute about justice and injustice in their own nature, and about things in general, we have been accustomed to call argumentation (Eristic)? THEAETETUS: Certainly
Source: Plato, Sophist

STRANGER: And now observe that the legislator who has to preside over the herd, and to enforce justice in their dealings with one another, will not be able, in enacting for the general good, to provide exactly what is suitable for each particular case
Source: Plato, Statesman

For all men in all things serve him of their own free will, and where there is voluntary agreement, there, as the laws which are the lords of the city say, is justice
Source: Plato, Symposium

But to him who is conscious of no sin, sweet hope, as Pindar charmingly says, is the kind nurse of his age: 'Hope,' he says, 'cherishes the soul of him who lives in justice and holiness, and is the nurse of his age and the companion of his journey;--hope which is mightiest to sway the restless soul of man.' How admirable are his words! And the great blessing of riches, I do not say to every man, but to a good man, is, that he has had no occasion to deceive or to defraud others, either intentionally or unintentionally; and when he departs to the world below he is not in any apprehension about offerings due to the gods or debts which he owes to men
Source: Plato, The Republic

But he is dead, and we insult over his orphan child; and even the guardians whom he left, and of whom our friend Theodorus is one, are unwilling to give any help, and therefore I suppose that I must take up his cause myself, and see justice done? THEODORUS: Not I, Socrates, but rather Callias, the son of Hipponicus, is guardian of his orphans
Source: Plato, Theaetetus

The part of them worthy of the name immortal, which is called divine and is the guiding principle of those who are willing to follow justice and you--of that divine part I will myself sow the seed, and having made a beginning, I will hand the work over to you
Source: Plato, Timaeus

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