Plato
Plato was an ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician, born around 428 BC in Athens, Greece. He is known for founding the Academy in Athens, one of the first institutions of higher learning in the Western world. Plato's philosophical works, including "The Republic" and "The Symposium," continue to be highly influential in Western philosophy.
How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state?
Entire ignorance is not so terrible or extreme an evil, and is far from being the greatest of all; too much cleverness and too much learning, accompanied with ill bringing-up, are far more fatal.
Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.
When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing more to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.
Twice and thrice over, as they say, good is it to repeat and review what is good.
Ignorance of all things is an evil neither terrible nor excessive, nor yet the greatest of all; but great cleverness and much learning, if they be accompanied by a bad training, are a much greater misfortune.
As the builders say, the larger stones do not lie well without the lesser.
The most virtuous are those who content themselves with being virtuous without seeking to appear so.
To prefer evil to good is not in human nature; and when a man is compelled to choose one of two evils, no one will choose the greater when he might have the less.
The god of love lives in a state of need. It is a need. It is an urge. It is a homeostatic imbalance. Like hunger and thirst, it's almost impossible to stamp out.
He who is of calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden.
There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help, and what they cannot.
There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands.
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.
Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.
All men are by nature equal, made all of the same earth by one Workman; and however we deceive ourselves, as dear unto God is the poor peasant as the mighty prince.
Justice in the life and conduct of the State is possible only as first it resides in the hearts and souls of the citizens.
People are like dirt. They can either nourish you and help you grow as a person or they can stunt your growth and make you wilt and die.
The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile.
The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the government of worse men.
Democracy... is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder; and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.