25 optimistic short life quotes from Plato

Plato was a philosopher, as well as mathematician, in Classical Greece. He is considered an essential figure in the development of philosophy, especially the Western tradition, and he founded the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his teacher Socrates and his most famous student, Aristotle, Plato laid the foundations of Western philosophy and science. Alfred North Whitehead once noted: “the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.”

01. Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.

02. We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.

03. Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.

04. A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers.

05. The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile.

06. The beginning is the most important part of the work.

07. The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future in life.

08. The measure of a man is what he does with power.

09. Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.

10. He who is not a good servant will not be a good master.

11. Those who intend on becoming great should love neither themselves nor their own things, but only what is just, whether it happens to be done by themselves or others.

12. All things will be produced in superior quantity and quality, and with greater ease, when each man works at a single occupation, in accordance with his natural gifts, and at the right moment, without meddling with anything else.

13. Thinking: the talking of the soul with itself.

14. Man - a being in search of meaning.

15. Better a little which is well done, than a great deal imperfectly.

16. He who is of calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden.

17. The man who makes everything that leads to happiness depends upon himself, and not upon other men, has adopted the very best plan for living happily. This is the man of moderation, the man of manly character and of wisdom.

18. I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.

19. No man should bring children into the world who is unwilling to persevere to the end in their nature and education.

20. There is no harm in repeating a good thing.

21. Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue.

22. Love is the joy of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the Gods.

23. Apply yourself both now and in the next life. Without effort, you cannot be prosperous. Though the land be good, You cannot have an abundant crop without cultivation.

24. The most virtuous are those who content themselves with being virtuous without seeking to appear so.

25. Courage is a kind of salvation.