Plato Quotes

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so.

Among many parallels which men of imagination have drawn between the natural and moral state of the world, it has been observed that happiness as well as virtue consists in mediocrity.

So it is clear that the search for what is just is a search for the mean; for the law is the mean.

This much then, is clear: in all our conduct it is the mean that is to be commended.

It is the function of vice to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.

Half the vices which the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderate use rather than total abstinence.

The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.

Moderation is the silken string running through the pearl chain of all virtues.

I don't subscribe to any particular doctrine or ideology. I just think that there's kind of a good and bad, the good being life in its purest, happiest form, and the other being the darker side of existence.

Be not righteous overmuch.

In every extreme there is vice and not virtue.

… vices are sometimes only virtues carried to excess!

Keep to the middle if you wish to keep moderation. The mid way is the safe way. Moderation abides in the mean, and moderation is virtue. Every abiding place outside the bounds of moderation is only exile to the wise man.

On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.

When we are happy, we are always good, but when we are good, we are not always happy.

One can aim at honor both as one ought, and more than one ought, and less than one ought. He whose craving for honor is excessive is said to be ambitious, and he who is deficient in this respect unambitious; while he who observes the mean has no peculiar name.

Temperance and bravery, then, are ruined by excess and deficiency, but preserved by the mean.

Some vices miss what is right because they are deficient, others because they are excessive, in feelings or in actions, while virtue finds and chooses the mean.

Happiness can be built only on virtue, and must of necessity have truth for its foundation.

Vices are simply overworked virtues.

Virtue and Happiness are Mother and Daughter.

One is not always happy when one is good; but one is always good when one is happy.

Whereas happiness is the highest good, being a realization and perfect practice of virtue, which some can attain, while others have little or none of it, the various qualities of men are clearly the reason why there are various kinds of states and many forms of government; for different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government.

It is as inhuman to be totally good as it is to be totally evil.

There is a mean in all things; even virtue itself has stated limits; which not being strictly observed, it ceases to be virtue.