Plato Quotes

Virtue is the health of the soul. It gives a flavor to the smallest leaves of life.

People should not worry as much about what they do but rather about what they are. If they and their ways are good, then their deeds are radiant. If you are righteous, then what you do will also be righteous. We should not think that holiness is based on what we do but rather on what we are, for it is not our works which sanctify us but we who sanctify our works.

The way of a man's heart will be foreshadowed by what goodness lies in him - coming from above, and from around; but a way foreshadowed is not a way made.

Virtue is a kind of health, beauty and good habit of the soul.

Virtue is to the soul what health is tot he body.

... learning humility is a prerequisite for grace.

Virtue is the health, true state, natural complexion of the Soul.

A man is not to aim at innocence, any more than he is to aim at hair, but he is to keep it.

When you see a good man, think of emulating him; when you see a bad man, examine your own heart.

If self-knowledge is the road to virtue, so is virtue still more the road to self-knowledge.

Virtue is the health of the soul.

Hast thou virtue? acquire also the graces and beauties of virtue.

... a man has to think of his soul before everything else.

Mercy can purge the soul of sin, making room for a fresh start. Truth is vital in order that we have an unvarying standard by which to determine what we are to be and to do and what we are to rid ourselves of. All the cardinal virtues, therefore, carry their own intrinsic as well as outward reward. A merciful man does do good to his own soul.

There is but one pursuit in life which it is in the power of all to follow, and of all to attain. It is subject to no disappointments, since he that perseveres, makes every difficulty an advancement, and every contest a victory; and this is the pursuit of virtue.

Men may be very learned, and yet very miserable; it is easy to be a deep geometrician, or a sublime astronomer, but very difficult to be a good man. I esteem, therefore, the traveller who instructs the heart, but despise him who only indulges the imagination. A man who leaves home to mend himself and others, is a philosopher; but he who goes from country to country, guided by the blind impulse of curiosity, is only a vagabond.

Just in proportion as a man becomes good, divine, Christ-like, he passes out of the region of theorizing, of system-building, and hireling service, into the region of beneficent activities. It is well to think well. It is divine to act well.

If we want happiness, I think we should follow classic Greek wisdom and live with areté. The word directly translates as 'excellence' or 'virtue,' but has a deeper meaning — something closer to 'expressing the highest version of ourselves.' When we're showing up fully moment to moment, there's no room for regret/anxiety/disillusionment, just a whole lot of happiness. Here's to getting our areté on!

We ought, so far as it lies within our power, to aspire to immortality, and do all that we can to live in conformity with the highest that is within us; for even if it is small in quantity, in power and preciousness, it far excels all the rest.

Good character is more to be praised than outstanding talent. Most talents are, to some extent, a gift. Good character, by contrast, is not given to us. We have to build it, piece by piece - by thought, choice, courage, and determination.

'As a man who knows how to make his education into a rule of life not a means of showing off; who can control himself and obey his own principles.' The true mirror of our discourse is the course of our lives.

We live in a culture that encourages us to be big about ourselves, and I think the starting point of trying to build inner goodness is to be a little bit smaller about yourself.

If a man can reach the latter days of his life with his soul intact, he has mastered life.

The soul is dyed by the thoughts. Dye it then, with a continuous series of such thoughts as these - that where a man can live, there - if he will - he can also live well.

If a man does not have an ideal and try to live up to it, then he becomes a mean, base and sordid creature, no matter how successful.