The Republic
Plato
3,663 passages indexed from The Republic (Plato) — Page 22 of 74
License: Public Domain
The Republic, passage 2061
Not so extraordinary, I replied, if you bear in mind that in former days, as is commonly said, before the time of Herodicus, the guild of Asclepius did not practise our present system of medicine, which may be said to educate diseases. But Herodicus, being a trainer, and himself of a sickly constitution, by a combination of training and doctoring found out a way of torturing first and chiefly himself, and secondly the rest of the world.
The Republic, passage 2740
Then, Adeimantus, I said, the worthy disciples of philosophy will be but a small remnant: perchance some noble and well-educated person, detained by exile in her service, who in the absence of corrupting influences remains devoted to her; or some lofty soul born in a mean city, the politics of which he contemns and neglects; and there may be a gifted few who leave the arts, which they justly despise, and come to her;—or peradventure there are some who are restrained by our friend Theages’ bridle; for everything in the life of Theages conspired to divert him from philosophy; but ill-health kept him away from politics.
The Republic, passage 2408
Why yes, I said, but the fact is that when a man is out of his depth, whether he has fallen into a little swimming bath or into mid ocean, he has to swim all the same.
The Republic, passage 1370
The words of Phaedrus, ‘O Socrates, you can easily invent Egyptians or anything,’ are recalled to our mind as we read this lifelike fiction. Yet the greater merit of the work is not the admirable art, but the originality of thought. More is as free as Plato from the prejudices of his age, and far more tolerant.
The Republic, passage 2946
And surely, he said, this occurs notably in the case of one; for we see the same thing to be both one and infinite in multitude?
The Republic, passage 798
But such a deception as this is inconsistent with the manner in which Aristotle speaks of the number (Pol.), and would have been ridiculous to any reader of the Republic who was acquainted with Greek mathematics. As little reason is there for supposing that Plato intentionally used obscure expressions; the obscurity arises from our want of familiarity with the subject.
The Republic, passage 1498
How characteristic of Socrates! he replied, with a bitter laugh;—that’s your ironical style! Did I not foresee—have I not already told you, that whatever he was asked he would refuse to answer, and try irony or any other shuffle, in order that he might avoid answering?
The Republic, passage 1649
Then now I think you will have no difficulty in understanding my meaning when I asked the question whether the end of anything would be that which could not be accomplished, or not so well accomplished, by any other thing?
The Republic, passage 3045
There are also opposite maxims and habits of pleasure which flatter and attract the soul, but do not influence those of us who have any sense of right, and they continue to obey and honour the maxims of their fathers.
The Republic, passage 2790
This was the sort of thing which was being said, and then the argument turned aside and veiled her face; not liking to stir the question which has now arisen.
The Republic, passage 310
The English poets of the last century were certainly not obscure; and we have no excuse for losing what they had gained, or for going back to the earlier or transitional age which preceded them. The thought of our own times has not out-stripped language; a want of Plato’s ‘art of measuring’ is the rule cause of the disproportion between them.
The Republic, passage 518
And I shall do my best to convince him and all mankind of the truth of my words, or at any rate to prepare for the future when, in another life, we may again take part in similar discussions. ‘That will be a long time hence.’ Not long in comparison with eternity.
The Republic, passage 1111
This is the lesson which Christ taught in a parable when He said, ‘Their angels do always behold the face of My Father which is in heaven.’ Such lessons are only partially realized in any age; they were foreign to the age of Plato, as they have very different degrees of strength in different countries or ages of the Christian world.
The Republic, passage 460
At the same time, if any conceited youth begins to dream of appropriating the State to himself, he must be reminded that ‘half is better than the whole.’ ‘I should certainly advise him to stay where he is when he has the promise of such a brave life.’
The Republic, passage 317
4. Plato makes the true and subtle remark that the physician had better not be in robust health; and should have known what illness is in his own person. But the judge ought to have had no similar experience of evil; he is to be a good man who, having passed his youth in innocence, became acquainted late in life with the vices of others. And therefore, according to Plato, a judge should not be young, just as a young man according to Aristotle is not fit to be a hearer of moral philosophy.
The Republic, passage 2934
When speaking of uninviting objects, I mean those which do not pass from one sensation to the opposite; inviting objects are those which do; in this latter case the sense coming upon the object, whether at a distance or near, gives no more vivid idea of anything in particular than of its opposite. An illustration will make my meaning clearer:—here are three fingers—a little finger, a second finger, and a middle finger.
The Republic, passage 3007
Then dialectic, and dialectic alone, goes directly to the first principle and is the only science which does away with hypotheses in order to make her ground secure; the eye of the soul, which is literally buried in an outlandish slough, is by her gentle aid lifted upwards; and she uses as handmaids and helpers in the work of conversion, the sciences which we have been discussing. Custom terms them sciences, but they ought to have some other name, implying greater clearness than opinion and less clearness than science: and this, in our previous sketch, was called understanding. But why should we dispute about names when we have realities of such importance to consider?
The Republic, passage 1879
I entirely agree, he said, in these principles, and promise to make them my laws.
The Republic, passage 3612
And if they are both known to them, one must be the friend and the other the enemy of the gods, as we admitted from the beginning?
The Republic, passage 1522
Then justice, according to your argument, is not only obedience to the interest of the stronger but the reverse?
The Republic, passage 1784
Yes, Socrates, he said, and if you were providing for a city of pigs, how else would you feed the beasts?
The Republic, passage 1481
Yes, but do not persons often err about good and evil: many who are not good seem to be so, and conversely?
The Republic, passage 448
And when children are born, the offspring of the brave and fair will be carried to an enclosure in a certain part of the city, and there attended by suitable nurses; the rest will be hurried away to places unknown. The mothers will be brought to the fold and will suckle the children; care however must be taken that none of them recognise their own offspring; and if necessary other nurses may also be hired. The trouble of watching and getting up at night will be transferred to attendants.
The Republic, passage 3120
The accumulation of gold in the treasury of private individuals is the ruin of timocracy; they invent illegal modes of expenditure; for what do they or their wives care about the law?
The Republic, passage 885
Those who spoke of justice as a cube, of virtue as an art of measuring (Prot.), saw no inappropriateness in conceiving the soul under the figure of a line, or the pleasure of the tyrant as separated from the pleasure of the king by the numerical interval of 729. And in modern times we sometimes use metaphorically what Plato employed as a philosophical formula. ‘It is not easy to estimate the loss of the tyrant, except perhaps in this way,’ says Plato.
The Republic, passage 2202
Charming! he replied. I see nothing charming in going into a passion with a man who tells you what is right.
The Republic, passage 1050
Plato, like the old painters, retains the traditional form, and like them he has also a vision of a city in the clouds.
The Republic, passage 2320
Well, I said, there is a story which I remember to have heard, and in which I put faith. The story is, that Leontius, the son of Aglaion, coming up one day from the Piraeus, under the north wall on the outside, observed some dead bodies lying on the ground at the place of execution. He felt a desire to see them, and also a dread and abhorrence of them; for a time he struggled and covered his eyes, but at length the desire got the better of him; and forcing them open, he ran up to the dead bodies, saying, Look, ye wretches, take your fill of the fair sight.
The Republic, passage 3486
Yes, he replied; inasmuch as by the natural process of creation He is the author of this and of all other things.
The Republic, passage 2841
Why, you know, I said, that the eyes, when a person directs them towards objects on which the light of day is no longer shining, but the moon and stars only, see dimly, and are nearly blind; they seem to have no clearness of vision in them?
The Republic, passage 3011
But let us defer the further correlation and subdivision of the subjects of opinion and of intellect, for it will be a long enquiry, many times longer than this has been.
The Republic, passage 2434
You will admit that the same education which makes a man a good guardian will make a woman a good guardian; for their original nature is the same?
The Republic, passage 2958
Clearly, he said, we are concerned with that part of geometry which relates to war; for in pitching a camp, or taking up a position, or closing or extending the lines of an army, or any other military manoeuvre, whether in actual battle or on a march, it will make all the difference whether a general is or is not a geometrician.
The Republic, passage 1060
When asked how the ideal polity can come into being, he answers ironically, ‘When one son of a king becomes a philosopher’; he designates the fiction of the earth-born men as ‘a noble lie’; and when the structure is finally complete, he fairly tells you that his Republic is a vision only, which in some sense may have reality, but not in the vulgar one of a reign of philosophers upon earth.
The Republic, passage 2135
And their dwellings must be such as will shield them against the cold of winter and the heat of summer.
The Republic, passage 870
And will he sell his own fairer and diviner part without any compunction to the most godless and foul? Would he not be worse than Eriphyle, who sold her husband’s life for a necklace? And intemperance is the letting loose of the multiform monster, and pride and sullenness are the growth and increase of the lion and serpent element, while luxury and effeminacy are caused by a too great relaxation of spirit.
The Republic, passage 3481
Well then, here are three beds: one existing in nature, which is made by God, as I think that we may say—for no one else can be the maker?
The Republic, passage 3049
Therefore, that your feelings may not be moved to pity about our citizens who are now thirty years of age, every care must be taken in introducing them to dialectic.
The Republic, passage 318
The bad, on the other hand, have a knowledge of vice, but no knowledge of virtue. It may be doubted, however, whether this train of reflection is well founded. In a remarkable passage of the Laws it is acknowledged that the evil may form a correct estimate of the good. The union of gentleness and courage in Book ii. at first seemed to be a paradox, yet was afterwards ascertained to be a truth. And Plato might also have found that the intuition of evil may be consistent with the abhorrence of it.
The Republic, passage 3372
The philosopher, he replied, has greatly the advantage; for he has of necessity always known the taste of the other pleasures from his childhood upwards: but the lover of gain in all his experience has not of necessity tasted—or, I should rather say, even had he desired, could hardly have tasted—the sweetness of learning and knowing truth.
The Republic, passage 2662
And if they are to be what we were describing, is there not another quality which they should also possess?
The Republic, passage 3365
Then we may begin by assuming that there are three classes of men—lovers of wisdom, lovers of honour, lovers of gain?
The Republic, passage 2918
What sort of knowledge is there which would draw the soul from becoming to being? And another consideration has just occurred to me: You will remember that our young men are to be warrior athletes?
The Republic, passage 1505
Yes, he replied, and then Socrates will do as he always does—refuse to answer himself, but take and pull to pieces the answer of some one else.
The Republic, passage 1373
When he had thus long reasoned the matter, they laid hold on him, accused him, and condemned him into exile, not as a despiser of religion, but as a seditious person and a raiser up of dissension among the people’).’ In the public services ‘no prayers be used, but such as every man may boldly pronounce without giving offence to any sect.’ He says significantly, ‘There be that give worship to a man that was once of excellent virtue or of famous glory, not only as God, but also the chiefest and highest God.
The Republic, passage 829
‘What appetites do you mean?’ I mean those which are awake when the reasoning powers are asleep, which get up and walk about naked without any self-respect or shame; and there is no conceivable folly or crime, however cruel or unnatural, of which, in imagination, they may not be guilty.
The Republic, passage 2744
A great work—yes; but not the greatest, unless he find a State suitable to him; for in a State which is suitable to him, he will have a larger growth and be the saviour of his country, as well as of himself.
The Republic, passage 2353
And the reason is that each part of him is doing its own business, whether in ruling or being ruled?
The Republic, passage 828
BOOK IX. Last of all comes the tyrannical man, about whom we have to enquire, Whence is he, and how does he live—in happiness or in misery? There is, however, a previous question of the nature and number of the appetites, which I should like to consider first. Some of them are unlawful, and yet admit of being chastened and weakened in various degrees by the power of reason and law.
The Republic, passage 1938
That such things are or are not to be said about men is a question which we cannot determine until we have discovered what justice is, and how naturally advantageous to the possessor, whether he seem to be just or not.