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Plato quotes on meaningSOCRATES: Yes, that is my meaning; and what is the excellence of the art of music, as I told you truly that the excellence of wrestling was gymnastic--what is the excellence of music--to be what? ALCIBIADES: To be musical, I suppose Suppose that you were suddenly to get into your head that it would be a good thing to kill Pericles, your kinsman and guardian, and were to seize a sword and, going to the doors of his house, were to enquire if he were at home, meaning to slay only him and no one else:--the servants reply, 'Yes': (Mind, I do not mean that you would really do such a thing; but there is nothing, you think, to prevent a man who is ignorant of the best, having occasionally the whim that what is worst is best? ALCIBIADES: No.) SOCRATES:--If, then, you went indoors, and seeing him, did not know him, but thought that he was some one else, would you venture to slay him? ALCIBIADES: Most decidedly not (it seems to me) To say this, when they were certain to be detected as soon as I opened my lips and proved myself to be anything but a great speaker, did indeed appear to me most shameless--unless by the force of eloquence they mean the force of truth; for is such is their meaning, I admit that I am eloquent No doubt some would affirm that the quiet are the temperate; but let us see whether these words have any meaning; and first tell me whether you would not acknowledge temperance to be of the class of the noble and good? Yes SOCRATES: I dare say that you may be right, Hermogenes: let us see;--Your meaning is, that the name of each thing is only that which anybody agrees to call it? HERMOGENES: That is my notion Wherefore if at the moment of speaking I cannot suitably express my meaning, you must excuse me, considering that to form approved likenesses of human things is the reverse of easy CRITO: And what was the nature of the vision? SOCRATES: There appeared to me the likeness of Source: Plato, Crito The two foreign gentlemen, perceiving that you did not know, wanted to explain to you that the word 'to learn' has two meanings, and is used, first, in the sense of acquiring knowledge of some matter of which you previously have no knowledge, and also, when you have the knowledge, in the sense of reviewing this matter, whether something done or spoken by the light of this newly-acquired knowledge; the latter is generally called 'knowing' rather than 'learning,' but the word 'learning' is also used; and you did not see, as they explained to you, that the term is employed of two opposite sorts of men, of those who know, and of those who do not know And now I think, Euthyphro, that my meaning will be intelligible; and my meaning is, that any state of action or passion implies previous action or passion SOCRATES: But there are other arts which work wholly through the medium of language, and require either no action or very little, as, for example, the arts of arithmetic, of calculation, of geometry, and of playing draughts; in some of these speech is pretty nearly co-extensive with action, but in most of them the verbal element is greater--they depend wholly on words for their efficacy and power: and I take your meaning to be that rhetoric is an art of this latter sort? GORGIAS: Exactly Would you like me to explain my meaning, Ion? ION: Yes, indeed, Socrates; I very much wish that you would: for I love to hear you wise men talk SOCRATES: That was my meaning when I said that I was to blame in having put my question badly, and that this was the reason of your answering badly The legislator was under the idea that war was the natural state of all mankind, and that peace is only a pretence; he thought that no possessions had any value which were not secured against enemies.' And do you think that superiority in war is the proper aim of government? 'Certainly I do, and my Spartan friend will agree with me.' And are there wars, not only of state against state, but of village against village, of family against family, of individual against individual? 'Yes.' And is a man his own enemy? 'There you come to first principles, like a true votary of the goddess Athene; and this is all the better, for you will the sooner recognize the truth of what I am saying--that all men everywhere are the enemies of all, and each individual of every other and of himself; and, further, that there is a victory and defeat--the best and the worst--which each man sustains, not at the hands of another, but of himself.' And does this extend to states and villages as well as to individuals? 'Certainly; there is a better in them which conquers or is conquered by the worse.' Whether the worse ever really conquers the better, is a question which may be left for the present; but your meaning is, that bad citizens do sometimes overcome the good, and that the state is then conquered by herself, and that when they are defeated the state is victorious over herself SOCRATES: I should greatly like, Eudicus, to ask Hippias the meaning of what he was saying just now about Homer Do you mean, I said, that if only one of them loves the other, they are mutual friends? Yes, he said; that is my meaning SOCRATES: And now, as Pindar says, 'read my meaning:'--colour is an effluence of form, commensurate with sight, and palpable to sense When the recitation was completed, Socrates requested that the first thesis of the first argument might be read over again, and this having been done, he said: What is your meaning, Zeno? Do you maintain that if being is many, it must be both like and unlike, and that this is impossible, for neither can the like be unlike, nor the unlike like--is that your position? Just so, said Zeno But I wanted to see whether I could purge away a scruple which I felt about the meaning of certain dreams SOCRATES: You seem to be unconscious, Phaedrus, that the 'sweet elbow' (A proverb, like 'the grapes are sour,' applied to pleasures which cannot be had, meaning sweet things which, like the elbow, are out of the reach of the mouth SOCRATES: I may illustrate my meaning by the letters of the alphabet, Protarchus, which you were made to learn as a child COMPANION: What is the meaning of this? Has anything happened between you and him? For surely you cannot have discovered a fairer love than he is; certainly not in this city of Athens THEAETETUS: What do you mean? STRANGER: You want to know what is the meaning of food for the soul; the other kind you surely understand YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean, Stranger? STRANGER: I will endeavour to speak more plainly out of love to your good parts, Socrates; and, although I cannot at present entirely explain myself, I will try, as we proceed, to make my meaning a little clearer Any one who pays the least attention to the subject will also perceive that in music there is the same reconciliation of opposites; and I suppose that this must have been the meaning of Heracleitus, although his words are not accurate; for he says that The One is united by disunion, like the harmony of the bow and the lyre I should be sorry to doubt the word of such a wise and inspired man, but his meaning, though probably clear to you, is the reverse of clear to me I will endeavour, however, to explain what I believe to be my meaning: When you speak of cobbling, you mean the art or science of making shoes? THEAETETUS: Just so And he who would understand what he remembers to have been said, whether in a dream or when he was awake, by the prophetic and inspired nature, or would determine by reason the meaning of the apparitions which he has seen, and what indications they afford to this man or that, of past, present or future good and evil, must first recover his wits Quotes for: Plato Quotes
Source: Project Gutenburg Texts
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