Plato Quotes About Virtue
-
The most virtuous are those who content themselves with being virtuous without seeking to appear so.
→ -
To do injustice is the greatest of all evils.
→ -
Let praise be given equally to women as well as men who have been distinguished in virtue.
→ -
To honor with hymns and panegyrics those who are still alive is not safe; a man should run his course and make a fair ending, and then we will praise him; and let praise be given equally to women as well as men who have been distinguished in virtue.
→ -
And all knowledge, when separated from justice and virtue, is seen to be cunning and not wisdom; wherefore make this your first and last and constant and all-absorbing aim, to exceed, if possible, not only us but all your ancestors in virtue; and know that to excel you in virtue only brings us shame, but that to be excelled by you is a source of happiness to us.
→ -
Now in this island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire which had rule over the whole island and several others, and over parts of the continent and, furthermore, the men of Atlantis had subjected the parts of Libya within the columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia.This vast power, gathered into one, endeavored to subdue at a blow our country and yours and the whole of the region within the straits, and then, Solon, your country shone forth, in the excellence of her virtue and strength, among all mankind.
→ -
I fear this is not the right exchange to attain virtue, to exchange pleasures for pleasures, pains for pains and fears for fears, the greater for the less like coins, but that the only valid currency for which all these things should be exchanged is wisdom.
→ -
He who gives himself to a lover because he is a good man, and in the hope that he will be improved by his company, shows himself to be virtuous, even though the object of his affection turn out to be a villain, and to have no virtue; and if he is deceived he has committed a noble error. For he has proved that for his part he will do anything for anybody with a view to virtue and improvement, than which there can be nothing nobler.
→ -
Remember our words, then, and whatever is your aim let virtue be the condition of the attainment of your aim, and know that without this all possessions and pursuits are dishonourable and evil.
→ -
All the gold which is under or upon the earth is not enough to give in exchange for virtue.
→ -
Great parts produce great vices as well as virtues.
→ -
Virtue is the desire of things honourable and the power of attaining them.
→ -
The love of the gods belongs to anyone who has given to true virtue and nourished it, and if any human being could become immortal, it would be he.
→ -
Discordance is evil. Harmony is virtue.
→ -
Virtue is voluntary, vice involuntary.
→ -
The State which we have founded must possess the four cardinal virtues of wisdom, courage, discipline and justice ... Justice is the principle which has in fact been followed throughout, the principle of one man one job, of minding one s own business , in the sense of doing the job for which one is naturally fitted and not interfering with other people.
→ -
So the state founded on natural principles is wise as a whole in virtue of the knowledge inherent in its smallest constituent class, which exercises authority over the rest. And the smallest class is the one which naturally possesses that form of knowledge which alone of all others deserves the title of wisdom.
→ -
Pepper is small in quantity and great in virtue.
→ -
Virtue is a kind of health, beauty and good habit of the soul.
→ -
All the gold upon the earth and all the gold beneath it, does not compensate for lack of virtue.
→ -
Great is the issue at stake, greater than appears, whether a man is to be good or bad. And what will any one be profited if, under the influence of money or power, he neglect justice and virtue?
→ -
We ought to esteem it of the greatest importance that the fictions which children first hear should be adapted in the most perfect manner to the promotion of virtue.
→ -
Virtue is relative to the actions and ages of each of us in all that we do.
→ -
Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue.
→ -
Remember how in that communion only, beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities (for he has hold not of an image but of a reality), and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may.
→ -
Is virtue something that can be taught?
→ -
Justice in the individual is now defined analogously to justice in the state. The individual is wise and brave in virtue of his reason and spirit respectively: he is disciplined when spirit and appetite are in proper subordination to reason. He is just in virtue of the harmony which exists when all three elements of the mind perform their proper function and so achieve their proper fulfillment; he is unjust when no such harmony exists.
→ -
When I hear a man discoursing of virtue, or of any sort of wisdom, who is a true man and worthy of his theme, I am delighted beyond measure: and I compare the man and his words, and note the harmony and correspondence of them. And such an one I deem to be the true musician, having in himself a fairer harmony than that of the lyre.
→ -
Those wretches who never have experienced the sweets of wisdom and virtue, but spend all their time in revels and debauches, sink downward day after day, and make their whole life one continued series of errors.
→