Plato - Collected Quotes

"[Arithmetic] has a very great and elevating effect, compelling the soul to reason about abstract numbers, and rebelling against the introduction of visible or tangible objects into the argument." (Plato)

"As being is to become, so is truth to belief" (Plato, "Timaeus", cca. 360 BC)

"Astronomy compels the soul to look up upward and leads us from this world to another." (Plato, cca. 400 BC)

"Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each." (Plato)

"Education is teaching our children to desire the right things." (Plato)

"I can show you that the art of computation has to do with odd and even numbers in their numerical relations to themselves and to each other." (Plato, "Charmides", cca. 5 century BC)

"I know too well that these arguments from probabilities are imposters, and unless great caution is observed in the use of them, they are apt to be deceptive." (Plato," Phaedo" [On the Soul], 4th century BC)

"If in a discussion of many matters […] we are not able to give perfectly exact and self-consistent accounts, do not be surprised: rather we would be content if we provide accounts that are second to none in probability." (Plato, "Timaeus", cca. 360 BC)

"Number is the bond of the eternal continuance of things." (Plato)

"The knowledge of which geometry aims is the knowledge of the eternal." (Plato)

"The object of education is to teach us to love what is beautiful." (Plato, "The Republic")

"The mathematician is perfect only in so far as he is a perfect man, in so far as he senses in himself the beauty of truth; only then will his work be thorough, transparent, prudent, pure, clear, graceful, indeed elegant." (Plato)

"The qualities of number appear to lead to the apprehension of truth." (Plato)

"They say that the greatest and fairest things are the work of nature and of chance, the lesser of art, which, receiving from nature the greater and primeval creations, molds and fashions all those lesser works which are generally termed artificial." (Plato, "Nomoi" ["Laws"], cca. 360 BC)


"We must make a threefold distinction and think of that which becomes, that in which it becomes, and the model which it resembles" (Plato, "Timaeus")