Today we share the philosophy of Plato (428 BCE-348 BCE) from his famous work ‘Republic’, which was written around 375 BCE. Plato’s philosophy and discussions centered around the idea of an ideal state governed by philosopher-kings, the theory of forms, and the pursuit of knowledge through dialectic reasoning. Most argue that Plato’s key contribution to philosophy was his theory of forms, which posited that the material world is an imperfect reflection of a higher realm of unchanging, eternal forms or ideas.
Plato’s “Republic” had a significant impact on philosophy and has for thousands of years influenced discussions on political theory, ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, the tripartite soul, and the nature of reality. It has shaped ideas about justice, the ideal state, the role of rulers and individuals in society, and the pursuit of knowledge, inspiring generations of philosophers to explore these themes further.
Quotes From ‘Republic’
Quotes are excerpted from the Barnes & Noble edition of ‘Republic’, published in 2004 and featuring an introduction by Elizabeth Watson Scharffenberger and a translation by Benjamin Jowett.
Autonomy
“The honorable mind which is to form a healthy judgment should have had no experience or contamination of evil habits when young.” – Book 3
Groups
“The barest notion of a State must include four or five men.” – Book 2
Liberty
“… for the unjust is lord over the truly simple and just: he is stronger, and his subjects do what is for his interest, and minister to his happiness, which is very far from being their own.” – Book 1
“I will show that all men who practise justice do so against their will, of necessity, but not as a good.” – Book 2
“… he knows that men are not just of their own free will; unless, peradventure, there be someone whom the divinity within him may have inspired with a hatred of injustice, or who has attained knowledge of the truth – but no other man.” – Book 2
Self-Sovereignty
“… so must we take our youth amid terrors of some kind, and again pass them into pleasures, and prove them more thoroughly than gold is proved in the furnace, that we may discover whether they are armed against all enchantments, and of a noble bearing always, good guardians of themselves and of the music which they have learned, and retaining under all circumstances a rhythmical and harmonious nature…” – Book 3
“There is something ridiculous in the expression ‘master of himself’; for the master is also the servant and the servant the master; and in all these modes of speaking the same person is denoted.” – Book 4
Social Capital
“And the unjust man will strive and struggle to obtain more than the just man or action, in order that he may have more than all? True.” – Book 1
“Only he blames injustice, who, owing to cowardice or age or some weakness, has not the power of being unjust. And this is proved by the fact that when he obtains the power, he immediately becomes unjust as far as he can be.” – Book 2
“… and so, their country being their mother and also their nurse, they are bound to advise for her good, and to defend her against attacks, and her citizens they are to regard as children of the earth and their own brothers.” – Book 3
“… true education, whatever that may be, will have the greatest tendency to civilize and humanize… and not only their education, but their habitations, and all that belongs to them, should be such as will brother impair their virtue as guardians, nor tempt them to prey upon the other citizens.” – Book 3
“Do you observe that we were not far wrong in our guess that temperance was a sort of harmony?… because temperance is unlike courage and wisdom, each of which resides in a part only, the one making the State wise and the other valiant; not so in temperance, which extends to the whole, and runs through all the notes of the scale, and produces a harmony of the weaker and the stronger and the middle class.” – Book 4
“What shall he profit, if his injustice be undetected and unpunished? He who is undetected only gets worse, whereas he who is detected and punished has the brutal part of his nature silenced and humanized.” – Book 9
“… my counsel is that we hold fast ever to the heavenly way and follow after justice and virtue always…Thus shall we live dear to one another and to the gods…” – Book 10
Sovereignty
“For there is reason to think that if a city were composed entirely of good men, then to avoid office would be as much an object of contention as to obtain office is at present; then we should have plain proof that the true ruler is not meant by nature to regard his own interest, but that of his subjects.” – Book 1
“And do the unjust appear to you to be wise and good? Yes, at any rate those of them who are able to be perfectly unjust, and who have the power of subduing States and nations.” – Book 1
“… justice, which is the subject of our inquiry, is, as you know, sometimes spoken of as the virtue of an individual, and sometimes as the virtue of s State.” – Book 2
“… in all well-ordered States every individual has an occupation to which he must attend, and has therefore no leisure to spend in continually being ill.” – Book 3
“And therefore every care must be taken that our auxiliaries, being stronger than our citizens, may not grow to be too much for them and become savage tyrants instead of friends and allies? Yes, great care should be taken.” – Book 3
“… our aim in founding the State was not the disproportionate happiness of any one class, but the greatest happiness of the whole; we thought that in a State which is ordered with a view to the good of the whole we should be most likely to find justice…” – Book 4
“… the State, if once started well, moves with accumulating force like a wheel. For good nurture and education implant good constitutions, and these good constitutions taking root in a good education improve more and more, and this improvement affects the breed in man…” – Book 4
“For the State, as you will acknowledge, may be justly called master of itself, if the words ‘temperance’ and ‘self-mastery’ truly express the rule of the better part over the worse.” – Book 4
“And in proportion as riches and rich men are honored in the State, virtue and the virtuous are dishonored.” – Book 8
Virtues
“That is to say, justice is useful when money is useless? – Book 1
“And so of all other things – justice is useful when they are useless, and useless when they are useful? That is the inference. Then justice is not good for much.” – Book 1
“Then if the just man is good at keeping money, he is good at stealing it.” – Book 1
“And so, you and Homer and Simonides are agreed that justice is an art of theft; to be practised, however, ‘for the good of friends and for the harm of enemies’?” – Book 1
“Then I suppose that we ought to do good to the just and harm to the unjust? I like that better.” – Book 1
“It is just to do good to our friends when they are good, and harm to our enemies when they are evil? Yes, that appears to be the truth.” – Book 1
“And will not men who are injured be deteriorated in that which is the proper virtue of man? Certainly. And that human virtue is justice? To be sure.” – Book 1
“And can the just by justice make men unjust, or speaking generally, can the good by virtue make them bad? Assuredly not.” – Book 1
“Then justice, according to your argument, is not only obedience to the interest of the stronger, but the reverse?… For if, as you say, justice is the obedience which the subject renders to their commands, in that case, O wisest of men, is there any escape from the conclusion that the weaker are commanded to do, not what is for the interest, but what is for the injury of the stronger? – Book 1
“For mankind censure injustice, fearing that they may be the victims of it and not because they shrink from committing it… injustice, when on a sufficient scale, has more strength and freedom and mastery than justice… justice is the interest of the stronger, whereas injustice is a man’s own profit and interest.” – Book 1
“I suppose that you would call justice virtue and injustice vice? What a charming notion! So likely too, seeing that I affirm injustice to be profitable and justice not.” – Book 1
“And would you call justice vice? No, I would rather say sublime simplicity. Then would you call injustice malignity? No, I would rather say discretion.” – Book 1
“… the just does not desire more than his like, but more than his unlike, whereas the unjust desires more than both his like and his unlike?… And the unjust is good and wise, and the just is neither? Good again, he said.” – Book 1
“Then the just is like the wise and good, and the unjust like the evil and ignorant? That was admitted.” – Book 1
“A statement was made that injustice is stronger and more powerful than justice, but now justice, having been identified with wisdom and virtue, is easily shown to be stronger than injustice, if injustice is ignorance; this can no longer be questioned by anyone.” – Book 1
“In which of the three classes would you place justice? In the highest class, I replied – among those goods which he who would be happy desires both for their own sake and for the sake of their results.” – Book 2
“And is not the love of learning the love of wisdom, which is philosophy? They are the same, he replied.” – Book 2
“… grace and harmony are the twin sisters of goodness and virtue and bear their likeness.” – Book 3
“… neither we nor our guardians, whom we have to educate, can ever become musical until we and they know the essential forms of temperance, courage, liberality, magnificence, and their kindred, as well as the contrary forms, in all their combinations, and can recognize them and their images wherever their are found…” – Book 3
“… ferocity only comes from spirit, which, if rightly educated, would give courage, but, if too much intensified, is liable to become hard and brutal… On that other hand the philosopher will have the quality of gentleness. And this also, when too much indulged, will turn to softness, but, if educated rightly, will be gentle and moderate.” – Book 3
“And the harmonious soul is both temperate and courageous? True. And the inharmonious is cowardly and boorish? Very true.” – Book 3
“Temperance, I replied, is the ordering or controlling of certain pleasures and desires.” – Book 4
“justice… this is the only virtue which remains in the State when the other virtues of temperance and courage and wisdom are abstracted… this is the ultimate cause and condition of the existence of all of them, and while remaining in them is also their preservative.” – Book 4
“And is there not illiberality and avarice in robbing a corpse…?” – Book 5
“But those who love the truth in each thing are to be called lovers of wisdom and not lovers of opinion.” – Book 5
“And is there anything more akin to wisdom than truth? How can there be?” – Book 6
“… the idea of good is the highest knowledge… all other things become useful and advantageous only by their use of this… we know so little [about good]; and, without which any other knowledge or possession of any kind will profit us nothing. Do you think that the possession of all other things is of any value if we do not possess the good? Or the knowledge of all other things if we have no knowledge of beauty and goodness? Assuredly not.” – Book 6
“And those who make pleasure their good are in equal perplexity; for they are compelled to admit that there are bad pleasures as well as good.” – Book 6
“… the knowledge at which geometry aims is knowledge of the eternal.” – Book 7
“There is a perfection which all knowledge ought to reach…” – Book 7
“As being is to becoming, so is pure intellect to opinion. And as intellect is to opinion, so is science to belief, and understanding to the perception of shadows.” – Book 7
“Those, then, who know not wisdom and virtue, and are always busy with gluttony and sensuality, go down and up again as far as the mean; and in this region they move at random throughout life, but they never pass into the true upper world; thither they neither look, nor do they ever find their way, neither are they truly filled with true being, nor do they taste of pure and abiding pleasure.” – Book 9
Thanks for reading!