Platão

Birth: 0427-05-07 , Atenas

Death: -347ac , Atenas

Plato was an influential Greek philosopher of antiquity, a student of Socrates and master of Aristotle. He is considered one of the most important figures in the history of Western thought, founder of the Academy of Athens and author of works that address themes such as justice, beauty, equality, politics, cosmology and the philosophy of mind.

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We shall be better and braver and less helpless if we think that we ought to enquire, than we should have been if we indulged in the idle fancy that there was no knowing and no use in seeking to know what we do not know;— that is a theme upon which I am ready to fight, in word and deed, to the utmost of my power.

What kind of man am I? One of those who would be pleased to be refuted if I say anything untrue, and who would be pleased to refute anyone who says anything untrue; one who, however, wouldn’t be any less pleased to be refuted than to refute. For I count being refuted a greater good, insofar as it is a greater good for oneself to be delivered from the worst thing there is than to deliver someone else from it.

We are like people looking for something they have in their hands all the time; we're looking in all directions except at the thing we want, which is probably why we haven't found it.

Wealth, and poverty; the one is the parent of luxury and indolence, and the other of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent.

Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils — no, nor the human race, as I believe — and then only will this our State have a possibility of life and behold the light of day.

True friendship can exist only between equals.

Wars and revolutions and battles, you see, are due simply and solely to the body and its desires. All wars are undertaken for the acquisition of wealth; and the reason why we have to acquire wealth is the body, because we are slaves in its service.

True opinions are a fine thing and do all sorts of good so long as they stay in their place; but they will not stay long. They run away from a man's mind, so they are not worth much until you tether them by working out the reason. Once they are tied down, they become knowledge, and are stable.

To the rulers of the state then, if to any, it belongs of right to use falsehood, to deceive either enemies or their own citizens, for the good of the state: and no one else may meddle with this privilege.

To fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise without really being wise, for it is to think that we know what we do not know. For no one knows whether death may not be the greatest good that can happen to man.

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Plato (c. 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was an Athenian philosopher who, along with his mentor Socrates and his student Aristotle, laid the foundations of Western and Greek philosophy. His best-known work is the Theory of Forms, according to which the sensible world is an imperfect copy of an intelligible world, of Forms or Ideas. Plato wrote numerous philosophical dialogues, in which Socrates is usually the main interlocutor. He founded the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. His ideas profoundly influenced philosophy, theology, science, and politics. He is considered one of the greatest thinkers of all time.