Plato quotes on death

Suppose that at this moment some God came to you and said: Alcibiades, will you live as you are, or die in an instant if you are forbidden to make any further acquisition?--I verily believe that you would choose death
Source: Plato, Alcibiades

I have said enough in answer to the charge of Meletus: any elaborate defence is unnecessary, but I know only too well how many are the enmities which I have incurred, and this is what will be my destruction if I am destroyed;--not Meletus, nor yet Anytus, but the envy and detraction of the world, which has been the death of many good men, and will probably be the death of many more; there is no danger of my being the last of them
Source: Plato, Alcibiades II

HERMOGENES: And what are the traditions? SOCRATES: Many terrible misfortunes are said to have happened to him in his life--last of all, came the utter ruin of his country; and after his death he had the stone suspended (talanteia) over his head in the world below--all this agrees wonderfully well with his name
Source: Plato, Cratylus

And the king was not to have the power of life and death over any of his kinsmen unless he had the assent of the majority of the ten
Source: Plato, Critias

SOCRATES: Why, Crito, when a man has reached my age he ought not to be repining at the approach of death
Source: Plato, Crito

If they know how to destroy men in such a way as to make good and sensible men out of bad and foolish ones--whether this is a discovery of their own, or whether they have learned from some one else this new sort of death and destruction which enables them to get rid of a bad man and turn him into a good one--if they know this (and they do know this--at any rate they said just now that this was the secret of their newly-discovered art)--let them, in their phraseology, destroy the youth and make him wise, and all of us with him
Source: Plato, Euthydemus

There was a notion that came into my mind while you were speaking; I said to myself: 'Well, and what if Euthyphro does prove to me that all the gods regarded the death of the serf as unjust,

And therefore he is the person who ought to be held in detestation, banished, and put to death, and not his instructor
Source: Plato, Gorgias

SOCRATES: And when Homer says, 'And she descended into the deep like a leaden plummet, which, set in the horn of ox that ranges in the fields, rushes along carrying death among the ravenous fishes (Il.),'-- will the art of the fisherman or of the rhapsode be better able to judge whether these lines are rightly expressed or not? ION: Clearly, Socrates, the art of the fisherman
Source: Plato, Ion

Moreover I have a claim upon you as an old friend of your father; for I and he were always companions and friends, and to the hour of his death there never was a difference between us; and now it comes back to me, at the mention of your name, that I have heard these lads talking to one another at home, and often speaking of Socrates in terms of the highest praise; but I have never thought to ask them whether the son of Sophroniscus was the person whom they meant
Source: Plato, Laches

But let me understand: you say that such customs exist among the Cretans and Lacedaemonians, and that the rest of the world would be improved by adopting them? 'Much improved.' And you compel your poets to declare that the righteous are happy, and that the wicked man, even if he be as rich as Midas, is unhappy? Or, in the words of Tyrtaeus, 'I sing not, I care not about him' who is a great warrior not having justice; if he be unjust, 'I would not have him look calmly upon death or be swifter than the wind'; and may he be deprived of every good--that is, of every true good
Source: Plato, Laws

At any rate he speaks falsely; for first he utters these words, which you just now repeated,-- 'He is hateful to me even as the gates of death who thinks one thing and says another:'-- And then he says, a little while afterwards, he will not be persuaded by Odysseus and Agamemnon, neither will he remain at Troy; but, says he,-- 'To-morrow, when I have offered sacrifices to Zeus and all the Gods, having loaded my ships well, I will drag them down into the deep; and then you shall see, if you have a mind, and if such things are a care to you, early in the morning my ships sailing over the fishy Hellespont, and my men eagerly plying the oar; and, if the illustrious shaker of the earth gives me a good voyage, on the third day I shall reach the fertile Phthia.' And before that, when he was reviling Agamemnon, he said,-- 'And now to Phthia I will go, since to return home in the beaked ships is far better, nor am I inclined to stay here in dishonour and amass wealth and riches for you.' But although on that occasion, in the presence of the whole army, he spoke after this fashion, and on the other occasion to his companions, he appears never to have made any preparation or attempt to draw down the ships, as if he had the least intention of sailing home; so nobly regardless was he of the truth
Source: Plato, Lesser Hippias

Ctesippus said: I like to see you blushing, Hippothales, and hesitating to tell Socrates the name; when, if he were with you but for a very short time, you would have plagued him to death by talking about nothing else
Source: Plato, Lysis

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
Source: Plato, Menexenus

For, if I am not mistaken, he was about seventy years old at his death, forty of which were spent in the practice of his profession; and during all that time he had a good reputation, which to this day he retains: and not only Protagoras, but many others are well spoken of; some who lived before him, and others who are still living
Source: Plato, Meno

PHAEDO: Did you not hear of the proceedings at the trial? ECHECRATES: Yes; some one told us about the trial, and we could not understand why, having been condemned, he should have been put to death, not at the time, but long afterwards
Source: Plato, Phaedo The Last Hours Of Socrates

I might have a rational explanation that Orithyia was playing with Pharmacia, when a northern gust carried her over the neighbouring rocks; and this being the manner of her death, she was said to have been carried away by Boreas
Source: Plato, Phaedrus

And further, make a law by my order, that he who has no part in reverence and justice shall be put to death, for he is a plague of the state.' And this is the reason, Socrates, why the Athenians and mankind in general, when the question relates to carpentering or any other mechanical art, allow but a few to share in their deliberations; and when any one else interferes, then, as you say, they object, if he be not of the favoured few; which, as I reply, is very natural
Source: Plato, Protagoras

STRANGER: And now, not-being has been shown to partake of being, and therefore he will not continue fighting in this direction, but he will probably say that some ideas partake of not-being, and some not, and that language and opinion are of the non-partaking class; and he will still fight to the death against the existence of the image-making and phantastic art, in which we have placed him, because, as he will say, opinion and language do not partake of not-being, and unless this participation exists, there can be no such thing as falsehood
Source: Plato, Sophist

YOUNG SOCRATES: What is this? STRANGER: No citizen should do anything contrary to the laws, and any infringement of them should be punished with death and the most extreme penalties; and this is very right and good when regarded as the second best thing, if you set aside the first, of which I was just now speaking
Source: Plato, Statesman

For what lover would not choose rather to be seen by all mankind than by his beloved, either when abandoning his post or throwing away his arms? He would be ready to die a thousand deaths rather than endure this
Source: Plato, Symposium

For let me tell you, Socrates, that when a man thinks himself to be near death, fears and cares enter into his mind which he never had before; the tales of a world below and the punishment which is exacted there of deeds done here were once a laughing matter to him, but now he is tormented with the thought that they may be true: either from the weakness of age, or because he is now drawing nearer to that other place, he has a clearer view of these things; suspicions and alarms crowd thickly upon him, and he begins to reflect and consider what wrongs he has done to others
Source: Plato, The Republic

I believe that he had seen him a little before his own death, when Theaetetus was a youth, and he had a memorable conversation with him, which he repeated to me when I came to Athens; he was full of admiration of his genius, and said that he would most certainly be a great man, if he lived
Source: Plato, Theaetetus

Wherefore, since ye are but creatures, ye are not altogether immortal and indissoluble, but ye shall certainly not be dissolved, nor be liable to the fate of death, having in my will a greater and mightier bond than those with which ye were bound at the time of your birth
Source: Plato, Timaeus

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