Plato Quotes

Since the branch of philosophy on which we are at present engaged differs from the others in not being a subject of merely intellectual interest — I mean we are not concerned to know what goodness essentially is, but how we are to become good men, for this alone gives the study its practical value — we must apply our minds to the solution of the problems of conduct.

There are some who write, talk, and think, so much about vice and virtue, that they have no time to practice either the one or the other.

What is the real relation between happiness and goodness? It is only within a few generations that men have found courage to say that there is none.

One path alone leads to a life of peace. The path of virtue.

People are either good or they're not. Religion doesn't make anybody good, I don't think.

We become moral when we are unhappy.

Heaven takes care that no man secures happiness by crime.

When we think of eternity, and of the future consequences of all human conduct, what is there in this life that should make any man contradict the dictates of his conscience, the principles of justice, the laws of religion, and of God?

The end of culture is right living

Each of us has a vision of good and of evil. We have to encourage people to move towards what they think is Good.

The order of nature [is] that individual happiness shall be inseparable from the practice of virtue.

For the superior morality, of which we hear so much, we too would desire to be thankful: at the same time, it were but blindness to deny that this superior morality is properly rather an inferior criminality, produced not by greater love of Virtue, but by greater perfection of Police; and of that far subtler and stronger Police, called Public Opinion.

Sin ought to be something exquisite, my dear boy.

One ought to be just before one is generous

Sin can bring pleasure, but never happiness.

To be good, and to do good, is all we have to do.

The difference between weakness and wickedness is much less than people suppose; and the consequences are nearly always the same.

Let us ask what is best - not what is customary. Let us love temperance - let us be just - let us refrain from bloodshed.

Follow the way of virtue. Follow the way joyfully through this world and on beyond.

Those who really deserve praise are the people who, while human enough to enjoy power, nevertheless pay more attention to justice than they are compelled to do by their situation.

I'm not a believer in predetermined fates, being rewarded for one's efforts. I'm not a believer in karma. The reason why I try to be a good person is because I think it's the right thing to do. If I commit fewer bad acts there will be fewer bad acts, maybe other people will join in committing fewer bad acts, and in time there will be fewer and fewer of them.

How good life is when one does something good and just!

The good needs fear no law, It is his safety and the bad man's awe.

Of all the things of a man's soul which he has within him, justice is the greatest good and injustice the greatest evil.

To have done no man a wrong...to walk and live, unseduced, within arm's length of what is not your own, with nothing between your desire and its gratification but the invisible law of rectitude-this is to be a man.