The Republic

“To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.” (Plato and Benjamin Jowett, The Republic)

“Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him?” (Plato and Benjamin Jowett, The Republic)

“Why yes, I said, but the fact is that when a man is out of his depth, whether he has fallen into a little swimming bath or into mid ocean, he has to swim all the same.” (Plato and Benjamin Jowett, The Republic)

“Then suppose you now take this parable to the gentleman who is surprised at finding that philosophers have no honour in their cities; explain it to him and try to convince him that their having honour would be far more extraordinary.” (Plato and Benjamin Jowett, The Republic)

“This was the conclusion at which I was seeking to arrive when I said that painting or drawing, and imitation in general, when doing their own proper work, are far removed from truth, and the companions and friends and associates of a principle within us which is equally removed from reason, and that they have no true or healthy aim. Exactly. The imitative art is an inferior who marries an inferior, and has inferior offspring.” (Plato and Benjamin Jowett, The Republic)

id:: 6632e622-c52f-4832-a87d-f5cecacd25ab

“his withered old father, first and most indispensable of friends,” (Plato and Benjamin Jowett, The Republic)

“And so, after much tossing, we have reached land, and are fairly agreed that the same principles which exist in the State exist also in the individual, and that they are three in number.” (Plato and Benjamin Jowett, The Republic)

“Now do you suppose that if a person were able to make the original as well as the image, he would seriously devote himself to the image-making branch? Would he allow imitation to be the ruling principle of his life, as if he had nothing higher in him? I should say not. The real artist, who knew what he was imitating, would be interested in realities and not in imitations; and would desire to leave as memorials of himself works many and fair; and, instead of being the author of encomiums, he would prefer to be the theme of them.” (Plato and Benjamin Jowett, The Republic)

“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. Like cattle, with their eyes always looking down and their heads stooping to the earth, that is, to the dining-table, they fatten and feed and breed, and, in their excessive love of these delights, they kick and butt at one another with horns and hoofs which are made of iron; and they kill one another by reason of their insatiable lust. For they fill themselves with that which is not substantial, and the part of themselves which they fill is also unsubstantial and incontinent.” (Plato and Benjamin Jowett, The Republic)

“I proclaim that justice is nothing else than the interest of the stronger.” (Plato and Benjamin Jowett, The Republic)

“Yes, but discourse should have a limit.” (Plato and Benjamin Jowett, The Republic)

“He said: Who then are the true philosophers? Those, I said, who are lovers of the vision of truth.” (Plato and Benjamin Jowett, The Republic)

“There remain then only the lyre and the harp for use in the city, and the shepherds may have a pipe in the country.” (Plato and Benjamin Jowett, The Republic)

“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, and in the ill-ordered State injustice: and, having found them, we might then decide which of the two is the happier.” (Plato and Benjamin Jowett, The Republic)

Goal is happiness of the whole. Well-ordered state creates justice? Ill-ordered injustice? And then which of the two is happier?