Plato (427 BC-347 BC)

Plato was an ancient Greek philosopher of Classical Athens who is most commonly considered the foundational thinker of the Western philosophical tradition. An innovator of the literary dialogue and dialectic forms, Plato influenced all the major areas of theoretical philosophy and practical philosophy, and was the founder of the Platonic Academy, a philosophical school in Athens where Plato taught the collection of philosophical theories that would later become known as Platonism.

Quotes

No man should bring children into the world who is unwilling to persevere to the end in their nature and education.
Just as it would be madness to settle on medical treatment for the body of a person by taking an opinion poll of the neighbors, so it is irrational to prescribe for the body politic by polling the opinions of the people at large.
Knowledge is true opinion.
Justice will only exist where those not affected by injustice are filled with the same amount of indignation as those offended.
Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten imparting grace.
If one has made a mistake, and fails to correct it, one has made a greater mistake.
It will be hard to discover a better [method of education] than that which the experience of so many ages has already discovered, and this may be summed up as consisting in gymnastics for the body, and _music_ for the soul... For this reason is a musical education so essential; since it causes Rhythm and Harmony to penetrate most intimately into the soul, taking the strongest hold upon it, filling it with _beauty_ and making the man _beautiful-minded_.
And the only life which looks down upon the life of political ambition is that of true philosophy. Do you know of any other?
Never discourage anyone... who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.
Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind's eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye; and he who remembers this when he sees any one whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to laugh; he will first ask whether that soul of man has come out of the brighter light, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness to the day is dazzled by excess of light.

Light
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Desires are only the lack of something: and those who have the greatest desires are in a worse condition than those who have none, or very slight ones.

Desire
They certainly give very strange names to diseases.
Never discourage anyone...who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.

Progress
No law or ordinance is mightier than understanding.
Necessity, who is the mother of invention.
The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things.
We are twice armed if we fight with faith.
Ignorance of all things is an evil neither terrible nor excessive, nor yet the greatest of all; but great cleverness and much learning, if they be accompanied by a bad training, are a much greater misfortune.
I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly combat.

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