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Platonic Quotes

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Platonic Quotes

“What was that? Valentine's Day? Her heart gave a little skip at the thought, she had never spent it in a romantic way before, usually the day meant sending and receiving cute Cupid cards and heart shaped sugar candies, but it was all in a platonic celebration of friendship. This time, it would not be like that, it would be ... special.”

LoveHeartRomanceFriendshipSweetRomanticAttractionCelebrationRomance NovelsValentineExperiencesValentine S DayHolidaysSweet RomanceRomance LoveCupidDatePlatonicValentines DaySpecial TimesValentinesDatesValentine S Day QuoteSt Valentines DayRomantic EveningSugar Candies
Book:Brushstrokes of a Gadfly
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“Euclid's Elements has been for nearly twenty-two centuries the encouragement and guide of that scientific thought which is one thing with the progress of man from a worse to a better state. The encouragement; for it contained a body of knowledge that was really known and could be relied on, and that moreover was growing in extent and application. For even at the time this book was written—shortly after the foundation of the Alexandrian Museum—Mathematics was no longer the merely ideal science of the Platonic school, but had started on her career of conquest over the whole world of Phenomena. The guide; for the aim of every scientific student of every subject was to bring his knowledge of that subject into a form as perfect as that which geometry had attained. Far up on the great mountain of Truth, which all the sciences hope to scale, the foremost of that sacred sisterhood was seen, beckoning for the rest to follow her.”

TruthSciencePerfectKnowledgeProgressElementsEncouragementMathematicsSacredMathApplicationPlatoConquestGeometryStudentGuidePlatonicScientificEuclidAlexandriaSubjectScientific ThoughtRelience
Book:Lectures and Essays by the Late William Kingdon Clifford, F.R.S.
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“I have observed, indeed, generally, that while in protestant countries the defections from the Platonic Christianity of the priests is to Deism, in catholic countries they are to Atheism. Diderot, D'Alembert, D’Holbach, Condorcet, are known to have been among the most virtuous of men. Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God. [Letter to Thomas Law, 13 June 1814]”

AtheismPlatonicDeismProtestantDiderotBaron D HolbachCondorcetD HolbachDenis DiderotPaul Henri D HolbachD AlembertJean Le Rond D AlembertMarquis De CondorcetPlatonic Christianity
Book:Letters of Thomas Jefferson
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“Fusing the doctrines of Plotinus and Proclus with the creeds and beliefs of Christianity, Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite combined the Neo-Platonic conviction of the fundamental oneness and luminous aliveness of the world with the Christian dogmas of the triune God, original sin and redemption. The universe is created, animated and unified by the perpetual self-realization of what Plotinus had called "the One," what the Bible had called "the Lord," and what he calls "the superessential Light.”

GodChristianityUnityTheologyOnenessDogmaPlatoMedievalPlatonicPlotinusNeoplatonismAbbot SugerSt DenisProcusPseudo AreopagitePseudo Dionysius
Book:Meaning in the Visual Arts
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“In this same tradition, beauty is inextricably bound up with the principles of order and harmony believed to underlie the cosmos. Artists in the Classical tradition, inspired by Platonic idealism, strove to create images that represented not the world of particulars-with all its defects-but an ideal image conceived in the mind, which was taken as representing some absolute, pure, ideal form of which all particular, material forms are but a mere shadow.”

WorldMindFormArtistOrderBeautyPrinciplesTakenParticularMaterialsPureShadowIdealsTraditionAbsolutesHarmonyMereInspiredBoundsCosmosIdealismDefectsRepresentingPlatonic
Author:John Walford
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“For, according to the teachings of Islam, moral knowledge automatically forces moral responsibility upon man. A mere Platonic discernment between Right and Wrong, without the urge to promote Right and to destroy Wrong, is a gross immorality in itself, for morality lives and dies with the human endeavour to establish its victory upon earth.”

MenHumansEarthDiesForceResponsibilityMoralTeachingVictoryMoralityMereIslamUrgesGrossDiscernmentEndeavourImmoralityPlatonicMoral Responsibility
Book:Islam at the Crossroads
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“All civilization in a sense exists only in the mind. Gunpowder, textile arts, machinery, laws, telephones are not themselves transmitted from man to man or from generation to generation, at least not permanently. It is the perception, the knowledge and understanding of them, their ideas in the Platonic sense, that are passed along. Everything social can have existence only through mentality.”

MenMindArtIdeasLawSocialUnderstandingExistenceGenerationsCivilizationPerceptionMentalityTelephonesMachineryPlatonicGunpowderTextilesKnowledge And Understanding
Author:Alfred L. Kroeber
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“In [Aristotle's] formal logic, thought is organized in a manner very different from that of the Platonic dialogue. In this formal logic, thought is indifferent toward its objects. Whether they are mental or physical, whether they pertain to society or to nature, they become subject to the same general laws of organization, calculation, and conclusion - but they do so as fungible signs or symbols, in abstraction from their particular "substance." This general quality (quantitative quality) is the precondition of law and order - in logic as well as in society - the price of universal control.”

WellsDifferentLawOrderQualitySubjectsObjectsParticularLogicOrganizationUniversalDialogueConclusionSymbolsSubstanceOrganizedIndifferentFormalAbstractionCalculationsLaw And OrderPlatonic
Author:Herbert Marcuse
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“Hellenic science is a victory of rationalism, which appears greater, not smaller, when one is made to realize that it had been won in spite of the irrational beliefs of the Greek people; all in all, it was a triumph of reason in the face of unreason. Some knowledge of Greek superstitions is needed not only for a proper appreciation of that triumph but also for the justification of occasional failures, such as the many Platonic aberrations.”

PeopleMadeReasonFacesBeliefRealizingGreaterNeededVictoryAppreciationTriumphGreekSpiteSuperstitionsJustificationIrrationalOccasionalRationalismPlatonicAberrationIrrational Beliefs
Book:Ancient Science Through the Golden Age of Greece
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“To avert the danger [posed by theory] to life, Nietzsche could choose one of two ways: he could insist on the strictly esoteric character of the theoretical analysis of life - that is, restore the Platonic notion of the noble delusion - or else he could deny the possibility of theory proper and so conceive of thought as essentially subservient to, or dependent on, life or fate... If not Nietzsche himself, at any rate his successors [Heidegger] adopted the second alternative.”

IfsWayTwoCharacterFateDangerPossibilityTheoryNotionRateDenyNobleAlternativesAnalysisDependentDelusionAdoptedTheoreticalTwo WaysSuccessorsEsotericPlatonicSubservientAvertHeidegger
Author:Leo Strauss
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“It has been a long road from Plato's Meno to the present, but it is perhaps encouraging that most of the progress along that road has been made since the turn of the twentieth century, and a large fraction of it since the midpoint of the century. Thought was still wholly intangible and ineffable until modern formal logic interpreted it as the manipulation of formal tokens. And it seemed still to inhabit mainly the heaven of Platonic ideals, or the equally obscure spaces of the human mind, until computers taught us how symbols could be processed by machines.”

MindHumansLongHas BeensMadeStillsTurnsHeavenSpaceProgressModernCenturyTaughtComputerIdealsLogicMachinesSymbolsManipulationHuman MindFormalObscurePlatoTwentieth CenturyFractionsTaught UsTokensIntangibleIneffablePlatonicLong RoadPlato S
Author:Allen Newell
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“The Doxology ... that testimonial to the Platonic Trinity, which divided the Roman Empire into at least eighteen quarreling sects, none of whom knew what they were fighting about, and which schisms contributed to the decline and fall of this greatest of states. Rome had thrived for one thousand years with pagan gods at the helm and expired after only one hundred and fifty years under the Christian banner.”

YearsStatesChristianFallFightingAtheismThousandHundredPositive AtheismFiftyEmpiresDividedRomeDeclineThousand YearsPaganEighteenSectsRoman EmpireBannerTrinityPlatonicHelmExpiredSchismTestimonialPagan GodsDoxology
Author:Ruth Hurmence Green
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“Poetry is related to philosophy as experience is related to empirical science. Experience makes us acquainted with the phenomenon in the particular and by means of examples, science embraces the whole of phenomena by means of general conceptions. So poetry seeks to make us acquainted with the Platonic Ideas through the particular and by means of examples. Philosophy aims at teaching, as a whole and in general, the inner nature of things which expresses itself in these. One sees even here that poetry bears more the character of youth, philosophy that of old age.”

MeanIdeasPhilosophyWholeCharacterAgeTeachingExampleYouthParticularBearsAimEmbraceOld AgeRelatedPoetry IsPhenomenonConceptionPlatonic
Book:The World As Will And Idea (Vol. 3 of 3)
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“For the Platonic or Aristotelian philosophy, it is of no importance whether Plato or Aristotle ever lived. For the mystical practice of an Indian, Persian, Chinese, or Neo-Platonic mystic it is a matter of indifference whether Rama, Buddha, Laotse, or Porphyrius are myths or not. The mystic has no personal relation to them. It is not here a question of somebody telling me the truth which of myself I cannot find, but of my finding an access to the depths of the world in the depths of my soul.”

WorldSoulMatterPhilosophyPracticeFindingsImportanceRelationDepthMythAccessMy SoulChineseIndianIndifferenceMysticalPlatoRamaMysticPersianPlatonic
Book:The Word and the World
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“If the Christian religion, as I understand it, or as you understand it, should maintain its ground, as I believe it will, yet Platonic, Pythagoric, Hindoo, and cabalistical Christianity, which is Catholic Christianity, and which has prevailed for 1500 years, has received a mortal wound, of which the monster must finally die. Yet so strong is his constitution, that he may endure for centuries before he expires.”

IfsShouldYearsBelieveMayChristianDiesBeliefStrongI BelieveChristianityCenturyConstitutionCatholicEndureWoundsMonstersMortalsPlatonic
Author:John Adams
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“It isn’t necessary to know exactly how your ideal life will look; you only have to know what feels better and what feels worse…Begin making choices based on what makes you feel freer and happier, rather than on how you think an ideal life should look. It’s the process of feeling our way toward happiness, not the realization of the Platonic ideal, that creates our best lives.”

ThinkingKnowsWayFeelsShouldLooksFeelingsChoicesProcessIdealsRealizationFeel BetterMaking ChoicesPlatonicIdeal Life
Author:Martha Beck
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