The Republic
Plato
3,663 passages indexed from The Republic (Plato) — Page 71 of 74
License: Public Domain
The Republic, passage 2587
Socrates, what do you mean? I would have you consider that the word which you have uttered is one at which numerous persons, and very respectable persons too, in a figure pulling off their coats all in a moment, and seizing any weapon that comes to hand, will run at you might and main, before you know where you are, intending to do heaven knows what; and if you don’t prepare an answer, and put yourself in motion, you will be ‘pared by their fine wits,’ and no mistake.
The Republic, passage 990
But this only shows that art, like other outward things, may be turned to good and also to evil, and is not more closely connected with the higher than with the lower part of the soul. All imitative art is subject to certain limitations, and therefore necessarily partakes of the nature of a compromise. Something of ideal truth is sacrificed for the sake of the representation, and something in the exactness of the representation is sacrificed to the ideal.
The Republic, passage 1536
And do you suppose that I ask these questions with any design of injuring you in the argument?
The Republic, passage 291
(It would perhaps be better to confine the term ‘guardians’ to this select class: the younger men may be called ‘auxiliaries.’)
The Republic, passage 394
To this universal conception of justice or order in the first education and in the moral nature of man, the still more universal conception of the good in the second education and in the sphere of speculative knowledge seems to succeed. Both might be equally described by the terms ‘law,’ ‘order,’ ‘harmony;’ but while the idea of good embraces ‘all time and all existence,’ the conception of justice is not extended beyond man.
The Republic, passage 1889
‘The soul flying from the limbs had gone to Hades, lamenting her fate, leaving manhood and youth.’
The Republic, passage 3412
Their pleasures are mixed with pains—how can they be otherwise? For they are mere shadows and pictures of the true, and are coloured by contrast, which exaggerates both light and shade, and so they implant in the minds of fools insane desires of themselves; and they are fought about as Stesichorus says that the Greeks fought about the shadow of Helen at Troy in ignorance of the truth.
The Republic, passage 349
And a State may get on without cobblers; but when the guardians degenerate into boon companions, then the ruin is complete. Remember that we are not talking of peasants keeping holiday, but of a State in which every man is expected to do his own work. The happiness resides not in this or that class, but in the State as a whole. I have another remark to make:—A middle condition is best for artisans; they should have money enough to buy tools, and not enough to be independent of business.
The Republic, passage 995
The illusion of the feelings commonly called love, has hitherto been the inspiring influence of modern poetry and romance, and has exercised a humanizing if not a strengthening influence on the world. But may not the stimulus which love has given to fancy be some day exhausted?
The Republic, passage 861
They are like fatted beasts, full of gluttony and sensuality, and ready to kill one another by reason of their insatiable lust; for they are not filled with true being, and their vessel is leaky (Gorgias). Their pleasures are mere shadows of pleasure, mixed with pain, coloured and intensified by contrast, and therefore intensely desired; and men go fighting about them, as Stesichorus says that the Greeks fought about the shadow of Helen at Troy, because they know not the truth.
The Republic, passage 948
‘Let not the first be careless in his choice, nor the last despair.’ He spoke; and when he had spoken, he who had drawn the first lot chose a tyranny: he did not see that he was fated to devour his own children—and when he discovered his mistake, he wept and beat his breast, blaming chance and the Gods and anybody rather than himself. He was one of those who had come from heaven, and in his previous life had been a citizen of a well-ordered State, but he had only habit and no philosophy.
The Republic, passage 1726
If the poets speak truly, why then we had better be unjust, and offer of the fruits of injustice; for if we are just, although we may escape the vengeance of heaven, we shall lose the gains of injustice; but, if we are unjust, we shall keep the gains, and by our sinning and praying, and praying and sinning, the gods will be propitiated, and we shall not be punished.
The Republic, passage 1032
Connected with the latter of the two aspects are (2) the paradoxes of the Republic, as they have been termed by Morgenstern: (a) the community of property; (b) of families; (c) the rule of philosophers; (d) the analogy of the individual and the State, which, like some other analogies in the Republic, is carried too far.
The Republic, passage 670
Plato seems also to hint at the possibility of other applications of arithmetical or mathematical proportions, such as we employ in chemistry and natural philosophy, such as the Pythagoreans and even Aristotle make use of in Ethics and Politics, e.g. his distinction between arithmetical and geometrical proportion in the Ethics (Book V), or between numerical and proportional equality in the Politics.
The Republic, passage 1749
But ought we to attempt to construct one? I said; for to do so, as I am inclined to think, will be a very serious task. Reflect therefore.
The Republic, passage 1971
Neither may they imitate smiths or other artificers, or oarsmen, or boatswains, or the like?
The Republic, passage 2872
And if they were able to converse with one another, would they not suppose that they were naming what was actually before them?
The Republic, passage 1145
For strength and health are not the only qualities to be desired; there are the more important considerations of mind and character and soul. We know how human nature may be degraded; we do not know how by artificial means any improvement in the breed can be effected. The problem is a complex one, for if we go back only four steps (and these at least enter into the composition of a child), there are commonly thirty progenitors to be taken into account. Many curious facts, rarely admitting of proof, are told us respecting the inheritance of disease or character from a remote ancestor. We can trace the physical resemblances of parents and children in the same family—
The Republic, passage 1819
Why, because he distinguishes the face of a friend and of an enemy only by the criterion of knowing and not knowing. And must not an animal be a lover of learning who determines what he likes and dislikes by the test of knowledge and ignorance?
The Republic, passage 3492
Now let me ask you another question: Which is the art of painting designed to be—an imitation of things as they are, or as they appear—of appearance or of reality?
The Republic, passage 1972
How can they, he said, when they are not allowed to apply their minds to the callings of any of these?
The Republic, passage 1922
Indeed, he said, I am strongly of opinion that they ought not to hear that sort of thing.
The Republic, passage 2444
Yes, I said, but a greater is coming; you will not think much of this when you see the next.
The Republic, passage 1860
If he change at all he can only change for the worse, for we cannot suppose him to be deficient either in virtue or beauty.
The Republic, passage 561
Yet the thesis, ‘corruptio optimi pessima,’ cannot be maintained generally or without regard to the kind of excellence which is corrupted. The alien conditions which are corrupting to one nature, may be the elements of culture to another. In general a man can only receive his highest development in a congenial state or family, among friends or fellow-workers. But also he may sometimes be stirred by adverse circumstances to such a degree that he rises up against them and reforms them.
The Republic, passage 1598
And what is your view about them? Would you call one of them virtue and the other vice?
The Republic, passage 985
Despotism in all ages has had an apparatus of false ideas and false teachers at its service—in the history of Modern Europe as well as of Greece and Rome. For no government of men depends solely upon force; without some corruption of literature and morals—some appeal to the imagination of the masses—some pretence to the favour of heaven—some element of good giving power to evil, tyranny, even for a short time, cannot be maintained.
The Republic, passage 1918
‘When the tables are full of bread and meat, and the cup-bearer carries round wine which he draws from the bowl and pours into the cups,’
The Republic, passage 785
But if he is not a believer in liberty, still less is he a lover of tyranny. His deeper and more serious condemnation is reserved for the tyrant, who is the ideal of wickedness and also of weakness, and who in his utter helplessness and suspiciousness is leading an almost impossible existence, without that remnant of good which, in Plato’s opinion, was required to give power to evil (Book I).
The Republic, passage 3406
Then, in general, those kinds of things which are in the service of the body have less of truth and essence than those which are in the service of the soul?
The Republic, passage 3352
Moreover, as we were saying before, he grows worse from having power: he becomes and is of necessity more jealous, more faithless, more unjust, more friendless, more impious, than he was at first; he is the purveyor and cherisher of every sort of vice, and the consequence is that he is supremely miserable, and that he makes everybody else as miserable as himself.
The Republic, passage 2321
The moral of the tale is, that anger at times goes to war with desire, as though they were two distinct things.
The Republic, passage 363
But utility is not the historical basis of morality; nor the aspect in which moral and religious ideas commonly occur to the mind. The greatest happiness of all is, as we believe, the far-off result of the divine government of the universe. The greatest happiness of the individual is certainly to be found in a life of virtue and goodness. But we seem to be more assured of a law of right than we can be of a divine purpose, that ‘all mankind should be saved;’ and we infer the one from the other.
The Republic, passage 1651
And the same is true of all other things; they have each of them an end and a special excellence?
The Republic, passage 106
‘You should come to me oftener, Socrates, for I am too old to go to you; and at my time of life, having lost other pleasures, I care the more for conversation.’ Socrates asks him what he thinks of age, to which the old man replies, that the sorrows and discontents of age are to be attributed to the tempers of men, and that age is a time of peace in which the tyranny of the passions is no longer felt.
The Republic, passage 2723
I might compare them to a man who should study the tempers and desires of a mighty strong beast who is fed by him—he would learn how to approach and handle him, also at what times and from what causes he is dangerous or the reverse, and what is the meaning of his several cries, and by what sounds, when another utters them, he is soothed or infuriated; and you may suppose further, that when, by continually attending upon him, he has become perfect in all this, he calls his knowledge wisdom, and makes of it a system or art, which he proceeds to teach, although he has no real notion of what he means by the principles or passions of which he is speaking, but calls this honourable and that dishonourable, or good or evil, or just or unjust, all in accordance with the tastes and tempers of the great brute.
The Republic, passage 3308
He first takes their property, and when that fails, and pleasures are beginning to swarm in the hive of his soul, then he breaks into a house, or steals the garments of some nightly wayfarer; next he proceeds to clear a temple. Meanwhile the old opinions which he had when a child, and which gave judgment about good and evil, are overthrown by those others which have just been emancipated, and are now the body-guard of love and share his empire.
The Republic, passage 2598
Once more let me ask: Does he who desires any class of goods, desire the whole class or a part only?
The Republic, passage 445
But they cannot be allowed to live in licentiousness; that is an unholy thing, which the rulers are determined to prevent. For the avoidance of this, holy marriage festivals will be instituted, and their holiness will be in proportion to their usefulness. And here, Glaucon, I should like to ask (as I know that you are a breeder of birds and animals), Do you not take the greatest care in the mating?
The Republic, passage 2603
To another, I replied, I might have a difficulty in explaining; but I am sure that you will admit a proposition which I am about to make.
The Republic, passage 2199
You would compare them, I said, to those invalids who, having no self-restraint, will not leave off their habits of intemperance?
The Republic, passage 1110
We have learned, though as yet imperfectly, that the individual man has an endless value in the sight of God, and that we honour Him when we honour the darkened and disfigured image of Him (Laws).
The Republic, passage 1296
Better to build up the mind by slow additions, to creep on quietly from one thing to another, to gain insensibly new powers and new interests in knowledge, than to form vast schemes which are never destined to be realized. But perhaps, as Plato would say, ‘This is part of another subject’ (Tim.); though we may also defend our digression by his example (Theaet.).
The Republic, passage 248
Truth should have a high place among the virtues, for falsehood, as we were saying, is useless to the gods, and only useful to men as a medicine. But this employment of falsehood must remain a privilege of state; the common man must not in return tell a lie to the ruler; any more than the patient would tell a lie to his physician, or the sailor to his captain.
The Republic, passage 2269
If we are asked to determine which of these four qualities by its presence contributes most to the excellence of the State, whether the agreement of rulers and subjects, or the preservation in the soldiers of the opinion which the law ordains about the true nature of dangers, or wisdom and watchfulness in the rulers, or whether this other which I am mentioning, and which is found in children and women, slave and freeman, artisan, ruler, subject,—the quality, I mean, of every one doing his own work, and not being a busybody, would claim the palm—the question is not so easily answered.
The Republic, passage 2549
‘They are holy angels upon the earth, authors of good, averters of evil, the guardians of speech-gifted men’?
The Republic, passage 1096
That Plato should have emancipated himself from the ideas of his own country and from the example of the East, shows a wonderful independence of mind. He is conscious that women are half the human race, in some respects the more important half (Laws); and for the sake both of men and women he desires to raise the woman to a higher level of existence.
The Republic, passage 2784
And that others should approve, of what we approve, is no miracle or impossibility?
The Republic, passage 680
The truth and certainty of numbers, when thus disengaged from phenomena, gave them a kind of sacredness in the eyes of an ancient philosopher. Nor is it easy to say how far ideas of order and fixedness may have had a moral and elevating influence on the minds of men, ‘who,’ in the words of the Timaeus, ‘might learn to regulate their erring lives according to them.’ It is worthy of remark that the old Pythagorean ethical symbols still exist as figures of speech among ourselves.
The Republic, passage 1810
He will not be a good guardian who is wanting in either of these two qualities; and yet the combination of them appears to be impossible; and hence we must infer that to be a good guardian is impossible.