| |
RSS Feed - Site Map - Contact |
| Bible Quotes | Aristotle Quotes | Plato Quotes | Shakespeare Quotes |
Plato quotes on lifeSOCRATES: I will proceed; and, although no lover likes to speak with one who has no feeling of love in him (compare Symp.), I will make an effort, and tell you what I meant: My love, Alcibiades, which I hardly like to confess, would long ago have passed Source: Plato, Alcibiades I SOCRATES: You see that it is not safe for a man either rashly to accept whatever is offered him, or himself to request a thing, if he is likely to suffer thereby or immediately to lose his life 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 Then temperance is not quietness, nor is the temperate life quiet,--certainly not upon this view; for the life which is temperate is supposed to be the good For there is none who is more the author of life to us and to all, than the lord and king of all Metaphys.), and when they see that the necessaries of life have already been provided, but not before SOCRATES: What? Has the ship come from Delos, on the arrival of which I am to die? CRITO: No, the ship has not actually arrived, but she will probably be here to-day, as persons who have come from Sunium tell me that they have left her there; and therefore to-morrow, Socrates, will be the last day of your life Then I would much rather that you should prove me to have such a knowledge; at my time of life that will be more agreeable than having to learn SOCRATES: Why, has the fugitive wings? EUTHYPHRO: Nay, he is not very volatile at his time of life SOCRATES: Say rather, Polus, impossible; for who can refute the truth? POLUS: What do you mean? If a man is detected in an unjust attempt to make himself a tyrant, and when detected is racked, mutilated, has his eyes burned out, and after having had all sorts of great injuries inflicted on him, and having seen his wife and children suffer the like, is at last impaled or tarred and burned alive, will he be happier than if he escape and become a tyrant, and continue all through life doing what he likes and holding the reins of government, the envy and admiration both of citizens and strangers? Is that the paradox which, as you say, cannot be refuted? SOCRATES: There again, noble Polus, you are raising hobgoblins instead of refuting me; just now you were calling witnesses against me LACHES: I should not like to maintain, Nicias, that any kind of knowledge is not to be learned; for all knowledge appears to be a good: and if, as Nicias and as the teachers of the art affirm, this use of arms is really a species of knowledge, then it ought to be learned; but if not, and if those who profess to teach it are deceivers only; or if it be knowledge, but not of a valuable sort, then what is the use of learning it? I say this, because I think that if it had been really valuable, the Lacedaemonians, whose whole life is passed in finding out and practising the arts which give them an advantage over other nations in war, would have discovered this one We lead the life of the camp even in time of peace, keeping up the organization of an army, and having meals in common; and as our country, owing to its ruggedness, is ill-suited for heavy-armed cavalry or infantry, our soldiers are archers, equipped with bows and arrows What sort of a word will this be, and how shall we rightly begin the praises of these brave men? In their life they rejoiced their own friends with their valour, and their death they gave in exchange for the salvation of the living SOCRATES: Then of two good and useful things, one, which is knowledge, has been set aside, and cannot be supposed to be our guide in political life And I also experience a trembling when I remember through what an ocean of words I have to wade at my time of life In the course of my life I have often had intimations in dreams 'that I should compose music.' The same dream came to me sometimes in one form, and sometimes in another, but always saying the same or nearly the same words: 'Cultivate and make music,' said the dream Remember what I have said; and consider yet this further point: friends admonish the lover under the idea that his way of life is bad, but no one of his kindred ever yet censured the non-lover, or thought that he was ill-advised about his own interests SOCRATES: And what if there be a third state, which is better than either? Then both of us are vanquished--are we not? But if this life, which really has the power of making men happy, turn out to be more akin to pleasure than to wisdom, the life of pleasure may still have the advantage over the life of wisdom How improbable is this, Socrates! Education and admonition commence in the first years of childhood, and last to the very end of life But, my boy, in the days when I was a boy, the great Parmenides protested against this doctrine, and to the end of his life he continued to inculcate the same lesson--always repeating both in verse and out of verse: 'Keep your mind from this way of enquiry, for never will you show that not-being is.' Such is his testimony, which is confirmed by the very expression when sifted a little STRANGER: Then, shall we say that the king has a greater affinity to knowledge than to manual arts and to practical life in general? YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly he has For I know not any greater blessing to a young man who is beginning life than a virtuous lover, or to the lover than a beloved youth And this is a question which I should like to ask of you who have arrived at that time which the poets call the 'threshold of old age'--Is life harder towards the end, or what report do you give of it? I will tell you, Socrates, he said, what my own feeling is He is a servant, and is continually disputing about a fellow-servant before his master, who is seated, and has the cause in his hands; the trial is never about some indifferent matter, but always concerns himself; and often the race is for his life SOCRATES: Neither did we forget the women; of whom we declared, that their natures should be assimilated and brought into harmony with those of the men, and that common pursuits should be assigned to them both in time of war and in their ordinary life Quotes for: Plato Quotes
Source: Project Gutenburg Texts
|
|
Copyright © 2010