The Republic
Plato
3,663 passages indexed from The Republic (Plato) — Page 57 of 74
License: Public Domain
The Republic, passage 2675
Labouring in vain, he must end in hating himself and his fruitless occupation? Yes.
The Republic, passage 2256
Do you observe that we were not far wrong in our guess that temperance was a sort of harmony?
The Republic, passage 1065
Augustine, whose great work ‘The City of God’ originated in a similar motive, for not being loyal to the Roman Empire. Even a nearer parallel might be afforded by the first Christians, who cannot fairly be charged with being bad citizens because, though ‘subject to the higher powers,’ they were looking forward to a city which is in heaven.
The Republic, passage 913
But we have not yet mentioned the heaviest count in the indictment—the power which poetry has of injuriously exciting the feelings. When we hear some passage in which a hero laments his sufferings at tedious length, you know that we sympathize with him and praise the poet; and yet in our own sorrows such an exhibition of feeling is regarded as effeminate and unmanly (Ion). Now, ought a man to feel pleasure in seeing another do what he hates and abominates in himself?
The Republic, passage 336
And then the body becomes the good friend or ally, or servant or instrument of the mind. And the mind has often a wonderful and almost superhuman power of banishing disease and weakness and calling out a hidden strength. Reason and the desires, the intellect and the senses are brought into harmony and obedience so as to form a single human being. They are ever parting, ever meeting; and the identity or diversity of their tendencies or operations is for the most part unnoticed by us.
The Republic, passage 1767
Then, again, there is the situation of the city—to find a place where nothing need be imported is wellnigh impossible.
The Republic, passage 1666
Is there not also a second class of goods, such as knowledge, sight, health, which are desirable not only in themselves, but also for their results?
The Republic, passage 176
For human nature oscillates between good and evil, and the motives of actions and the origin of institutions may be explained to a certain extent on either hypothesis according to the character or point of view of a particular thinker. The obligation of maintaining authority under all circumstances and sometimes by rather questionable means is felt strongly and has become a sort of instinct among civilized men.
The Republic, passage 815
8 and 27; and the mean proportionals between these, viz. 12 and 18, will furnish three intervals and four terms, and these terms and intervals stand related to one another in the sesqui-altera ratio, i.e. each term is to the preceding as 3/2. Now if we remember that the number 216 = 8 x 27 = 3 cubed + 4 cubed + 5 cubed, and 3 squared + 4 squared = 5 squared, we must admit that this number implies the numbers 3, 4, 5, to which musicians attach so much importance.
The Republic, passage 2642
Then what will you do with them? I said. Can they have a better place than between being and not-being? For they are clearly not in greater darkness or negation than not-being, or more full of light and existence than being.
The Republic, passage 933
On the twelfth day he was placed on the funeral pyre and there he came to life again, and told what he had seen in the world below. He said that his soul went with a great company to a place, in which there were two chasms near together in the earth beneath, and two corresponding chasms in the heaven above.
The Republic, passage 453
Socrates proceeds: I have now to prove that this scheme is advantageous and also consistent with our entire polity. The greatest good of a State is unity; the greatest evil, discord and distraction. And there will be unity where there are no private pleasures or pains or interests—where if one member suffers all the members suffer, if one citizen is touched all are quickly sensitive; and the least hurt to the little finger of the State runs through the whole body and vibrates to the soul.
The Republic, passage 2209
I conceive, I said, that the true legislator will not trouble himself with this class of enactments whether concerning laws or the constitution either in an ill-ordered or in a well-ordered State; for in the former they are quite useless, and in the latter there will be no difficulty in devising them; and many of them will naturally flow out of our previous regulations.
The Republic, passage 2153
But do not put this idea into our heads; for, if we listen to you, the husbandman will be no longer a husbandman, the potter will cease to be a potter, and no one will have the character of any distinct class in the State.
The Republic, passage 2472
The proper officers will take the offspring of the good parents to the pen or fold, and there they will deposit them with certain nurses who dwell in a separate quarter; but the offspring of the inferior, or of the better when they chance to be deformed, will be put away in some mysterious, unknown place, as they should be.
The Republic, passage 3480
Suppose now that by the light of the examples just offered we enquire who this imitator is?
The Republic, passage 3248
The people have always some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness.
The Republic, passage 1925
In the next place, we must not let them be receivers of gifts or lovers of money.
The Republic, passage 2634
And in that interval there has now been discovered something which we call opinion?
The Republic, passage 959
Why Plato, who was himself a poet, and whose dialogues are poems and dramas, should have been hostile to the poets as a class, and especially to the dramatic poets; why he should not have seen that truth may be embodied in verse as well as in prose, and that there are some indefinable lights and shadows of human life which can only be expressed in poetry—some elements of imagination which always entwine with reason; why he should have supposed epic verse to be inseparably associated with the impurities of the old Hellenic mythology; why he should try Homer and Hesiod by the unfair and prosaic test of utility,—are questions which have always been debated amongst students of Plato.
The Republic, passage 3217
The good which oligarchy proposed to itself and the means by which it was maintained was excess of wealth—am I not right?
The Republic, passage 1542
And the pilot—that is to say, the true pilot—is he a captain of sailors or a mere sailor?
The Republic, passage 1793
Then without determining as yet whether war does good or harm, thus much we may affirm, that now we have discovered war to be derived from causes which are also the causes of almost all the evils in States, private as well as public.
The Republic, passage 2092
Yes, he said, I am quite aware that the mere athlete becomes too much of a savage, and that the mere musician is melted and softened beyond what is good for him.
The Republic, passage 110
Ought I, for example, to put back into the hands of my friend, who has gone mad, the sword which I borrowed of him when he was in his right mind? ‘There must be exceptions.’ ‘And yet,’ says Polemarchus, ‘the definition which has been given has the authority of Simonides.’ Here Cephalus retires to look after the sacrifices, and bequeaths, as Socrates facetiously remarks, the possession of the argument to his heir, Polemarchus...
The Republic, passage 1543
The circumstance that he sails in the ship is not to be taken into account; neither is he to be called a sailor; the name pilot by which he is distinguished has nothing to do with sailing, but is significant of his skill and of his authority over the sailors.
The Republic, passage 1962
Then the same person will hardly be able to play a serious part in life, and at the same time to be an imitator and imitate many other parts as well; for even when two species of imitation are nearly allied, the same persons cannot succeed in both, as, for example, the writers of tragedy and comedy—did you not just now call them imitations?
The Republic, passage 3423
I assume, I said, that the tyrant is in the third place from the oligarch; the democrat was in the middle?
The Republic, passage 1747
And if we imagine the State in process of creation, we shall see the justice and injustice of the State in process of creation also.
The Republic, passage 888
The simple observation that the comparison of two similar solids is effected by the comparison of the cubes of their sides, is the mathematical groundwork of this fanciful expression. There is some difficulty in explaining the steps by which the number 729 is obtained; the oligarch is removed in the third degree from the royal and aristocratical, and the tyrant in the third degree from the oligarchical; but we have to arrange the terms as the sides of a square and to count the oligarch twice over, thus reckoning them not as = 5 but as = 9. The square of 9 is passed lightly over as only a step towards the cube.
The Republic, passage 2270
Then the power of each individual in the State to do his own work appears to compete with the other political virtues, wisdom, temperance, courage.
The Republic, passage 2806
A right noble thought; but do you suppose that we shall refrain from asking you what is this highest knowledge?
The Republic, passage 731
He has had no education, or he would never have allowed the blind god of riches to lead the dance within him. And being uneducated he will have many slavish desires, some beggarly, some knavish, breeding in his soul. If he is the trustee of an orphan, and has the power to defraud, he will soon prove that he is not without the will, and that his passions are only restrained by fear and not by reason. Hence he leads a divided existence; in which the better desires mostly prevail.
The Republic, passage 1453
I should be sorry to doubt the word of such a wise and inspired man, but his meaning, though probably clear to you, is the reverse of clear to me. For he certainly does not mean, as we were just now saying, that I ought to return a deposit of arms or of anything else to one who asks for it when he is not in his right senses; and yet a deposit cannot be denied to be a debt.
The Republic, passage 2194
And for this reason, I said, I shall not attempt to legislate further about them.
The Republic, passage 2402
First, then, whether the question is to be put in jest or in earnest, let us come to an understanding about the nature of woman: Is she capable of sharing either wholly or partially in the actions of men, or not at all? And is the art of war one of those arts in which she can or can not share? That will be the best way of commencing the enquiry, and will probably lead to the fairest conclusion.
The Republic, passage 1842
For a young person cannot judge what is allegorical and what is literal; anything that he receives into his mind at that age is likely to become indelible and unalterable; and therefore it is most important that the tales which the young first hear should be models of virtuous thoughts.
The Republic, passage 355
The change appears innocent at first, and begins in play; but the evil soon becomes serious, working secretly upon the characters of individuals, then upon social and commercial relations, and lastly upon the institutions of a state; and there is ruin and confusion everywhere. But if education remains in the established form, there will be no danger. A restorative process will be always going on; the spirit of law and order will raise up what has fallen down.
The Republic, passage 3039
Do you think that there is anything so very unnatural or inexcusable in their case? or will you make allowance for them?
The Republic, passage 496
For they are lovers of the knowledge of the eternal and of all truth; they are haters of falsehood; their meaner desires are absorbed in the interests of knowledge; they are spectators of all time and all existence; and in the magnificence of their contemplation the life of man is as nothing to them, nor is death fearful. Also they are of a social, gracious disposition, equally free from cowardice and arrogance.
The Republic, passage 2537
And they will place them under the command of experienced veterans who will be their leaders and teachers?
The Republic, passage 279
They were acting in the interest of the public, and did not wish to preserve useless lives, or raise up a puny offspring to wretched sires. Honest diseases they honestly cured; and if a man was wounded, they applied the proper remedies, and then let him eat and drink what he liked. But they declined to treat intemperate and worthless subjects, even though they might have made large fortunes out of them.
The Republic, passage 1377
His dislike of capital punishment, and plans for the reformation of offenders; his detestation of priests and lawyers (Compare his satirical observation: ‘They (the Utopians) have priests of exceeding holiness, and therefore very few.); his remark that ‘although every one may hear of ravenous dogs and wolves and cruel man-eaters, it is not easy to find states that are well and wisely governed,’ are curiously at variance with the notions of his age and indeed with his own life.
The Republic, passage 3384
Twice in succession, then, has the just man overthrown the unjust in this conflict; and now comes the third trial, which is dedicated to Olympian Zeus the saviour: a sage whispers in my ear that no pleasure except that of the wise is quite true and pure—all others are a shadow only; and surely this will prove the greatest and most decisive of falls?
The Republic, passage 204
‘But,’ said Glaucon, interposing, ‘are they not to have a relish?’ Certainly; they will have salt and olives and cheese, vegetables and fruits, and chestnuts to roast at the fire. ‘’Tis a city of pigs, Socrates.’ Why, I replied, what do you want more? ‘Only the comforts of life,—sofas and tables, also sauces and sweets.’ I see; you want not only a State, but a luxurious State; and possibly in the more complex frame we may sooner find justice and injustice.
The Republic, passage 3322
They are the opposite extremes, he said, for one is the very best and the other is the very worst.
The Republic, passage 1786
Yes, I said, now I understand: the question which you would have me consider is, not only how a State, but how a luxurious State is created; and possibly there is no harm in this, for in such a State we shall be more likely to see how justice and injustice originate. In my opinion the true and healthy constitution of the State is the one which I have described. But if you wish also to see a State at fever-heat, I have no objection.
The Republic, passage 464
We have already determined that he shall have more wives than others, in order that he may have as many children as possible. And at a feast he shall have more to eat; we have the authority of Homer for honouring brave men with ‘long chines,’ which is an appropriate compliment, because meat is a very strengthening thing. Fill the bowl then, and give the best seats and meats to the brave—may they do them good!
The Republic, passage 1869
I mean that no one is willingly deceived in that which is the truest and highest part of himself, or about the truest and highest matters; there, above all, he is most afraid of a lie having possession of him.
The Republic, passage 2814
Of this then, which every soul of man pursues and makes the end of all his actions, having a presentiment that there is such an end, and yet hesitating because neither knowing the nature nor having the same assurance of this as of other things, and therefore losing whatever good there is in other things,—of a principle such and so great as this ought the best men in our State, to whom everything is entrusted, to be in the darkness of ignorance?