Plato quotes on government

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Plato quotes on government

For we were wrong, I think, in supposing, as we were saying just now, that such wisdom ordering the government of house or state would be a great benefit
Source: Plato, Charmides

SOCRATES: Then consider the matter in this way:--Imagine

that I am about to play truant (you may call the proceeding by any name which you like), and the laws and the government come and interrogate me: 'Tell us, Socrates,' they say; 'what are you about? are you not going by an act of yours to overturn us--the laws, and the whole state, as far as in you lies? Do you imagine that a state can subsist and not be overthrown, in which the decisions of law have no power, but are set aside and trampled upon by individuals?' What will be our answer, Crito, to these and the like words? Any one, and especially a rhetorician, will have a good deal to say on behalf of the law which requires a sentence to be carried out
Source: Plato, Crito

Men lived according to the customs of their fathers, in a simple manner, under a patriarchal government, such as still exists both among Hellenes and barbarians, and is described in Homer as prevailing among the Cyclopes:-- 'They have no laws, and they dwell in rocks or on the tops of mountains, and every one is the judge of his wife and children, and they do not trouble themselves about one another.' 'That is a charming poet of yours, though I know little of him, for in Crete foreign poets are not much read.' 'But he is well known in Sparta, though he describes Ionian rather than Dorian manners, and he seems to take your view of primitive society.' May we not suppose that government arose out of the union of single families who survived the destruction, and were under the rule of patriarchs, because they had originally descended from a single father and mother? 'That is very probable.' As time went on, men increased in number, and tilled the ground, living in a common habitation, which they protected by walls against wild beasts; but the several families retained the laws and customs which they separately received from their first parents
Source: Plato, Laws

For government is the nurture of man, and

the government of good men is good, and of bad men bad
Source: Plato, Menexenus

Now when the charioteer beholds the vision of love, and has his whole soul warmed through sense, and is full of the prickings and ticklings of desire, the obedient steed, then as always under the government of shame, refrains from leaping on the beloved; but the other, heedless of the pricks and of the blows of the whip, plunges and runs away, giving all manner of trouble to his companion and the charioteer, whom he forces to approach the beloved and to remember the joys of love
Source: Plato, Phaedrus

STRANGER: Again, a large household may be compared to a small state:--will they differ at all, as far as government is concerned? YOUNG SOCRATES: They will not
Source: Plato, Statesman

Well, he said, have you never heard that forms of government differ; there are tyrannies, and there are democracies, and there are aristocracies? Yes, I know
Source: Plato, The Republic

Further, when to this evil constitution of body evil forms of government are added and evil discourses are uttered in private as well as in public, and no sort of instruction is given in youth to cure these evils, then all of us who are bad become bad from two causes which are entirely beyond our control
Source: Plato, Timaeus

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