Thoughts on Truth - Philosophy

Phaedo

for nothing gives me ... do so. pg. 51

I had no ... ever does. pg. 51

What a strange ... following. pg. 52 60b

Tell this to ... is not right. pg. 53 61b-61d

and it is never ... benefit them. pg. 54 62a

Indeed, said, ... to it. 62b

[we shouldn't kill ourselves because maybe we are in prison or we are the gods' possessions]

As for what you ... rejoice at it. 62d

I should be wrong ... the wicked. 63b

I will try ... upon them. 63e

Our people in ... death they deserve. 64b

---

Clitophon

By all means ... am able. 407a

Socrates, when I ... the norm.

those who disciple ... skill and justice. 407e

virtue is teachable ... anything else. 408c

it's ridiculous ... its sake. 410e.

Charmides

And it occured to ... such a creature. 155d

If the whole is not in good condition it is impossible that the part should be.

these charms ... of the body. 157a

And he gave me ... beauty. 157c

The headache ... his wits. 157c

As the offspring ... of place. 158a

And further ... and quickly. 160a

Homer said, "modesty is not a good mate for a needy man."

there would be ... understand it. 162e

"Nothing too much"

"Pledges lead to perdition"

you are talking ... I consider. 165b

[Why Socrates does what he does] how could you ... will be 166c-166e

When Critias heard ... predicament. 169c

I think I am ... ourselves. 173a

you will not ... action. 173e

pg. 141 So it is not surprising that a man who is trained like me should be clever at speaking. But even a man less well taught than I, who had learned his music from Lamprus and his rhetoric from Antiphon the Rhamnusian - even such a one, I say, could nonetheless win credit by praising Athenians before an Athenian audience. - Socrates, Menexenus 236A

Diogenes Laertius, Book III - Plato

There are some things, say the wise, which the soul perceives through the body, as in seeing and hearing; there are other things which it discerns by itself without the aid of the body. Hence it follows that of existing things some are objects of sense and others objects of thought. Hence Plato said that, if we wish to take in at one glance the principles underlying the universe, we must first distinguish the ideas by themselves, for example, likeness, unity and plurality, magnitude, rest and motion; next we must assume the existence of 13. beauty, goodness, justice and the like, each existing in and for itself; in the third place we must see how many of the ideas are relative to other ideas, as are knowledge, or magnitude, or ownership, remembering that the things within our experience bear the same names as those ideas because they partake of them; I mean that things which partake of justice are just, things which partake of beauty are beautiful. Each one of the ideas is eternal, it is a notion, and moreover is incapable of change. Hence Plato says that they stand in nature like archetypes, and that all things else bear a resemblance to the ideas because they are copies of these archetypes.

15. Now Plato in conceiving his theory of Ideas says:[14] Since there is such a thing as memory, there must be ideas present in things, because memory is of something stable and permanent, and nothing is permanent except the ideas. `For how,' he says, `could animals have survived unless they had apprehended the idea and had been endowed by Nature with intelligence to that end? As it is, they remember similarities and what their food is like, which shows that animals have the innate power of discerning what is similar. And hence they perceive others of their own kind.

Star-gazing Aster, would I were the skies, To gaze upon thee with a thousand eyes.

Among the living once the Morning Star, Thou shin'st, now dead, like Hesper from afar.

Tears from their birth the lot had been Of Ilium's daughters and their queen. By thee, O Dion, great deeds done New hopes and larger promise won. Now here thou liest gloriously, How deeply loved, how mourned by me.

Now, when Alexis is of no account, I have said no more than this. He is fair to see, and everywhere all eyes are turned upon him. Why, my heart, do you show the dogs a bone? And then will you smart for this hereafter? Was it not thus that we lost Phaedrus?

I have a mistress, fair Archeanassa of Colophon, on whose very wrinkles sits hot love. O hapless ye who met such beauty on its first voyage, what a flame must have been kindled in you!

While kissing Agathon, my soul leapt to my lips, as if fain, alas! to pass over to him.

I throw an apple to you and, if indeed you are willing to love me, then receive it and let me taste your virgin charms. But if you are otherwise minded, which heaven forbid, take this very apple and see how short-lived all beauty is.

An apple am I, thrown by one who loves you. Nay, Xanthippe, give consent, for you and I are both born to decay.

Thus Venus to the Muses spoke: Damsels, submit to Venus' yoke, Or dread my Cupid's arms. Those threats, the virgins nine replied, May weigh with Mars, but we deride Love's wrongs, or darts, or charms.

A certain person found some gold, Carried it off and, in its stead, Left a strong halter, neatly rolled. The owner found his treasure fled, And, daunted by his fortune's wreck, Fitted the halter to his neck.

A story is told that Plato once saw some one playing at dice and rebuked him. And, upon his protesting that he played for a trifle only, "But the habit," rejoined Plato, "is not a trifle." Being asked whether there would be any memoirs of him as of his predecessors, he replied, "A man must first make a name, and he will have no lack of memoirs." One day, when Xenocrates had come in, Plato asked him to chastise his slave, since he was unable to do it himself because he was in a passion. 39. Further, it is alleged that he said to one of his slaves, "I would have given you a flogging, had I not been in a passion." Being mounted on horseback, he quickly got down again, declaring that he was afraid he would be infected with horse-pride. He advised those who got drunk to view themselves in a mirror; for they would then abandon the habit which so disfigured them. To drink to excess was nowhere becoming, he used to say, save at the feasts of the god who was the giver of wine. He also disapproved of over-sleeping. At any rate in the Laws[46] he declares that 40. "no one when asleep is good for anything." He also said that the truth is the pleasantest of sounds. Another version of this saying is that the pleasantest of all things is to speak the truth. Again, of truth he speaks thus in the Laws:[47] "Truth, O stranger, is a fair and durable thing. But it is a thing of which it is hard to persuade men." His wish always was to leave a memorial of himself behind, either in the hearts of his friends or in his books. He was himself fond of seclusion according to some authorities.

Here lies the god-like man Aristocles, eminent among men for temperance and the justice of his character. And he, if ever anyone, had the fullest meed of praise for wisdom, and was too great for envy.

Next:[51]

44. Earth in her bosom here hides Plato's body, but his soul hath its immortal station with the blest, Ariston's son, whom every good man, even if he dwell afar off, honours because he discerned the divine life.

And a third of later date:[52]

a. Eagle, why fly you o'er this tomb? Say, is your gaze fixed upon the starry house of one of the immortals?

b. I am the image of the soul of Plato, which has soared to Olympus, while his earth-born body rests in Attic soil.

45. There is also an epitaph of my own which runs thus:[53]

If Phoebus did not cause Plato to be born in Greece, how came it that he healed the minds of men by letters? As the god's son Asclepius is a healer of the body, so is Plato of the immortal soul.

And another on the manner of his death:[54]

Phoebus gave to mortals Asclepius and Plato, the one to save their souls, the other to save their bodies. From a wedding banquet he has passed to that city which he had founded for himself and planted in the sky.

Olympiodorus - Life of Plato

These were the three things the boys at Athens were taught, I mean grammar, music, and wrestling, not simply for themselves; but grammar, to embellish the language natural to them; music, to tame violent passions; and wrestling and gymnastics, to strengthen the relaxed state of desire. In these three points Alcibiades appears to have been instructed by him; and hence Socrates says to him, “But to play on the pipe you were not willing,” and what follows.

And, when he was at Syracuse with Dionysius the Great, he endeavoured to change the tyranny there into an aristocracy; for which purpose he had gone to him (Dionysius); and on the latter inquiring of him – Whom do you think amongst men is happy? fancying forsooth that the philosopher would, out of flattery, say that he was, Plato answered that (he thought) Socrates was. (And when) Dionysius asked him again – What do you consider as the business of a statesman? Plato replied – To make the citizens better. (And when) he asked a third time – What then? Does it seem to you a little thing to act the judge correctly? – for Dionysius had a reputation for acting the judge correctly – Plato replied, not lowering his sail a jot – It is indeed a little thing, and of a statesman the farthest portion ; for they, who act the judge correctly, are like the menders of cloth, who weave up again torn garments. (And when) he asked a fourth time – What is it, think you, to be a tyrant? Is it not a brave thing? Plato replied – Of all the most cowardly; since he fears even the razor of the barber, lest he should lose his life by it. Whereupon Dionysius, being greatly annoyed, ordered him, while the sun was still above the earth, to take himself off from Syracuse; and thus was Plato with dishonour driven out of Syracuse.

He writes therefore to Plato, that Dionysius had promised to release him, if Plato would come to him again; when he readily undertook this third journey to assist his friend. And thus much on the travels of the philosopher to Sicily.