“[W]hen men have both done and suffered injustice and have had experience of both, not being able to avoid the one and obtain the other, they think that they had better agree among themselves to have neither; hence there arise laws and mutual covenants; and that which is ordained by law is termed by them lawful and just. This they affirm to be the origin and nature of justice;—it is a mean or compromise,
between the best of all, which is to do injustice and not be punished, and the worst of all, which is to suffer injustice without the power of retaliation; and justice, being at a middle point between the two, is tolerated not as a good, but as the lesser evil…”
Source: The Republic
“["F]or it's not possible," [Socrates] said, "for anybody to experience a greater evil than hating arguments. Hatred of arguments and hatred of human beings come about in the same way. For hatred of human beings arises from artlessly trusting somebody to excess, and believing that human being to be in every way true and sound and trustworthy, and then a little later discovering that this person is wicked and untrustworthy - and then having this experience again with another. And whenever somebody experiences this many times, and especially at the hands of just those he might regard as his most intimate friends and comrades, he then ends up taking offense all the time and hates all human beings and believes there's nothing at all sound in anybody.”
Source: Phaedo
“When anything is in the presence of evil, but is not as yet evil, the presence of good arouses the desire of good in that thing; but the presence of evil, which makes a thing evil, takes away the desire and friendship of the good; for that which was once both good and evil has now become evil only, and the good has no friendship with evil.”
Source: Plato: The Complete Works: From the greatest Greek philosopher, known for The Republic, Symposium, Apology, Phaedrus, Laws, Crito, Phaedo, Timaeus, Meno, Euthyphro, Gorgias, Parmenides, Protagoras, Statesman and Critias
“No one punishes the evil-doer under the notion, or for the reason, that he has done wrong -- only the unreasonable fury of a beast acts in that way. But he who desires to inflict rational punishment does not retaliate for a past wrong, for that which is done cannot be undone, but he has regard to the future, and is desirous that the man who is punished, and he who sees him punished, may be deterred from doing wrong again.”
“All who do evil and dishonorable things do them against their will.”
Source: The Works of Plato: Charmides, Lysis, Other Dialogues and the Laws
“To do wrong is the greatest of evils.”
“To escape from evil we must be made as far as possible like God; and the resemblance consists in becoming just and holy and wise.”
Source: Wit and Wisdom of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle: Being a Treasury of Thousands of Glorious, Inspiring and Imperishable Thoughts, Views and Observations of the Three Great Greek Philosophers, Classified Under about Four Hundred Subjects for Comparative Study
“For the man who makes everything that leads to happiness, or near to it, to depend upon himself, and not upon other men, on whose good or evil actions his own doings are compelled to hinge,--such a one, I say, has adopted the very best plan for living happily. This is the man of moderation; this is the man of manly character and of wisdom.”
Source: Wit and Wisdom of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle: Being a Treasury of Thousands of Glorious, Inspiring and Imperishable Thoughts, Views and Observations of the Three Great Greek Philosophers, Classified Under about Four Hundred Subjects for Comparative Study
“The greatest penalty of evil-doing is to grow into the likeness of bad men, and, growing like them, to fly from the conversation of the good, and be cut off from them, and cleave to and follow after the company of the bad.”
Source: Laws
“To do injustice is the greatest of all evils.”
“Fly from the company of the wicked--fly and turn not back.”
Source: Laws
“The human race will have no respite from evils until those who are really philosophers acquire political power or until, through some divine dispensation, those who rule and have political authority in the cities become real philosophers.”
“You may be sure, dear Crito, that inaccurate language is not only in itself a mistake: it implants evil in men's souls.”
Source: Phaedo: Translated, with Introd., Notes, and Appendices
“No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew it was the greatest of evils.”
Source: Plato: Five Dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo
“Evil is the vulgar lover who loves the body rather than the soul, inasmuch as he is not even stable, because he loves a thing which is in itself unstable, and therefore when the bloom of youth which he was desiring is over, he takes wing and flies away, in spite of all his words and promises; whereas the love of the noble disposition is life-long, for it becomes one with the everlasting.”
Source: Plato: The Complete Works: From the greatest Greek philosopher, known for The Republic, Symposium, Apology, Phaedrus, Laws, Crito, Phaedo, Timaeus, Meno, Euthyphro, Gorgias, Parmenides, Protagoras, Statesman and Critias
“The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”
“False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.”
Source: The Final Days of Socrates: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito and Phaedo
“The judge should not be young, he should have learned to know evil, not from his own soul, but from late and long observation of the nature of evil in others.”
Source: The Republic
“No evil can happen to a good man either in life or after death.”
Source: Six Great Dialogues: Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Phaedrus, Symposium, The Republic
“The form of law which I propose would be as follows: In a state which is desirous of being saved from the greatest of all plagues-not faction, but rather distraction-there should exist among the citizens neither extreme poverty nor, again, excessive wealth, for both are productive of great evil . . . Now the legislator should determine what is to be the limit of poverty or of wealth.”
Source: Laws. Appendix: Lesser Hippias. First Alcibiades. Menexenus. Index of persons and places
“Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.”
“The greatest penalty of evil-doing is to grow into the likeness of a bad man.”
“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.”
Source: Wit and Wisdom of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle: Being a Treasury of Thousands of Glorious, Inspiring and Imperishable Thoughts, Views and Observations of the Three Great Greek Philosophers, Classified Under about Four Hundred Subjects for Comparative Study
“Pleasure is the greatest incentive to evil.”
Source: Wit and Wisdom of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle: Being a Treasury of Thousands of Glorious, Inspiring and Imperishable Thoughts, Views and Observations of the Three Great Greek Philosophers, Classified Under about Four Hundred Subjects for Comparative Study
“Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous.”
“Ignorance, the root and the stem of every evil.”
“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.”
Source: The Republic
“Remember our words, then, and whatever is your aim let virtue be the condition of the attainment of your aim, and know that without this all possessions and pursuits are dishonourable and evil.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Plato (Illustrated)
“Of all the things of a man's soul which he has within him, justice is the greatest good and injustice the greatest evil.”
Source: The Republic
“For though a man should be a complete unbeliever in the being of gods; if he also has a native uprightness of temper, such persons will detest evil in men; their repugnance to wrong disinclines them to commit wrongful acts; they shun the unrighteous and are drawn to the upright.”
Source: The Laws of Plato
“To prefer evil to good is not in human nature; and when a man is compelled to choose one of two evils, no one will choose the greater when he might have the less.”
Source: The Portable Plato
“Herein is the evil of ignorance, that he who is neither good nor wise is nevertheless satisfied with himself: he had no desire for that of which he feels no want.”
Source: The Portable Plato
“Entire ignorance is not so terrible or extreme an evil, and is far from being the greatest of all.”
Source: The Complete Works of Plato (Unabridged): From the greatest Greek philosopher, known for The Republic, Symposium, Apology, Phaedrus, Laws, Crito, Phaedo, Timaeus, Meno, Euthyphro, Gorgias, Parmenides, Protagoras, Statesman and Critias
“Wherever it has been established that it is shameful to be involved with sexual relationships with men, that is due to evil on the part of the rulers, and to cowardice on the part of the governed.”
“Until philosophers rule as kings or those who are now called kings and leading men genuinely and adequately philosophise, that is, until political power and philosophy entirely coincide, while the many natures who at present pursue either one exclusively are forcibly prevented from doing so, cities will have no rest from evils,... nor, I think, will the human race.”
Source: The Philosophy Collection [97 Books]
“Interference by the three classes with each other s jobs, and interchange of jobs between them, therefore, does the greatest harm to our state, and we are entirely justified in calling it the worst of evils.”
Source: The Republic
“It is not noble to return evil for evil, at no time ought we to do an injury to our neighbors.”
“To go to the world below, having a soul which is like a vessel full of injustice, is the last and worst of all the evils.”
Source: Gorgias. Philebus. Parmenides. Theaetetus. Sophist. Statesman
“Discordance is evil. Harmony is virtue.”
“There should exist among the citizens neither extreme poverty nor again excessive wealth, for both are productive of great evil.”
Source: Laws
“Lord of Lords, grant us the good whether we pray for it or not, but evil keep from us, even though we pray for it.”
“Laws are partly formed for the sake of good men, in order to instruct them how they may live on friendly terms with one another, and partly for the sake of those who refuse to be instructed, whose spirit cannot be subdued, or softened, or hindered from plunging into evil.”
Source: Laws
“For all good and evil, whether in the body or in human nature, originates ... in the soul, and overflows from thence, as from the head into the eyes.”
Source: The Complete Plato
“To a good man nothing that happens is evil.”
Source: Wit and Wisdom of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle: Being a Treasury of Thousands of Glorious, Inspiring and Imperishable Thoughts, Views and Observations of the Three Great Greek Philosophers, Classified Under about Four Hundred Subjects for Comparative Study
“There is yet something remaining for the dead, and some far better thing for the good than for the evil.”
Source: The Trial and Death of Socrates: Four Dialogues
“Ignorance: the root of all evil.”
