Plato quotes on music

SOCRATES: Then let me put the matter in another way: what do you call the Goddesses who are the patronesses of art? ALCIBIADES: The Muses do you mean, Socrates? SOCRATES: Yes, I do; and what is the name of the art which is called after them? ALCIBIADES:

And is it not best to understand what is said, whether at the writing-master's or the music-master's, or anywhere else, not as quietly as possible, but as quickly as possible? Yes
Source: Plato, Charmides

HERMOGENES: How so? SOCRATES: I will endeavour to explain, for I do not believe that any single name could have been better adapted to express the attributes of the God, embracing and in a manner signifying all four of them,--music, and prophecy, and medicine, and archery
Source: Plato, Cratylus

'Or against those of us who after birth regulate the nurture and education of children, in which you also were trained? Were not the laws, which have the charge of education, right in commanding your father to train you in music and gymnastic?' Right, I should reply
Source: Plato, Crito

I am only apprehensive that I may bring the two strangers into disrepute, as I have done Connus the son of Metrobius, the harp-player, who is still my music-master; for when the boys who go to him see me going with them, they laugh at me and call him grandpapa's master
Source: Plato, Euthydemus

SOCRATES: And you would call sounds and music beautiful for the same reason? POLUS: I should
Source: Plato, Gorgias

SOCRATES: And do the Epidaurians have contests of rhapsodes at the festival? ION: O yes; and of all sorts of musical performers
Source: Plato, Ion

NICIAS: That I have the means of knowing as well as Laches; for quite lately he supplied me with a teacher of music for my sons,--Damon, the disciple of Agathocles, who is a most accomplished man in every way, as well as a musician, and a companion of inestimable value for young men at their age
Source: Plato, Laches

For drinking cannot be rightly ordered without correct

SOCRATES: And what would you say of an unmusical voice; would you prefer the voice which is voluntarily or involuntarily out of tune? HIPPIAS: That which is voluntarily out of tune
Source: Plato, Lesser Hippias

SOCRATES: Yes, I do; and besides her I had Connus, the son of Metrobius, as a master, and he was my master in music, as she was in rhetoric
Source: Plato, Menexenus

SOCRATES: And you know, also, that he taught them to be unrivalled horsemen, and had them trained in music and gymnastics and all sorts of arts--in these respects they were on a level with the best--and had he no wish to make good men of them? Nay, he must have wished it
Source: Plato, Meno

In the course of my life I have often had intimations in dreams 'that I should compose music.' The same dream came to me sometimes in one form, and sometimes in another, but always saying the same or nearly the same words: 'Cultivate and make music,' said the dream
Source: Plato, Phaedo The Last Hours Of Socrates

SOCRATES: Come, O ye Muses, melodious, as ye are called, whether you have received this name from the character of your strains, or because the Melians are a musical race, help, O help me in the tale which my good friend here desires me to rehearse, in order that his friend whom he always deemed wise may seem to him to be wiser than ever
Source: Plato, Phaedrus

PROTARCHUS: How so? SOCRATES: Sound is one in music as well as in grammar? PROTARCHUS: Certainly
Source: Plato, Philebus

But you should not assume, Hippocrates, that the instruction of Protagoras is of this nature: may you not learn of him in the same way that you learned the arts of the grammarian, or musician, or trainer, not with the view of making any of them a profession, but only as a part of education, and because a private gentleman and freeman ought to know them? Just so, he said; and that, in my opinion, is a far truer account of the teaching of Protagoras
Source: Plato, Protagoras

STRANGER: Take music in general and painting and marionette playing and many other things, which are purchased in one city, and carried away and sold in another--wares of the soul which are hawked about either for the sake of instruction or amusement;--may not he who takes them about and sells them be quite as truly called a merchant as he who sells meats and drinks? THEAETETUS: To be sure he may
Source: Plato, Sophist

And he is their merry-maker and musician, as far as their nature is susceptible of such influences, and no one can console and soothe his own herd better than he can, either with the natural tones of his voice or with instruments
Source: Plato, Statesman

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
Source: Plato, Symposium

And when you want to keep a shield or a lyre, and not to use them, you would say that justice is useful; but when you want to use them, then the art of the soldier or of the musician? Certainly
Source: Plato, The Republic

SOCRATES: By all means, Theaetetus, in order that I may see the reflection of myself in your face, for Theodorus says that we are alike; and yet if each of us held in his hands a lyre, and he said that they were tuned alike, should we at once take his word, or should we ask whether he who said so was or was not a musician? THEAETETUS: We should ask
Source: Plato, Theaetetus

SOCRATES: And what did we say of their education? Were they not to be trained in gymnastic, and music, and all other sorts of knowledge which were proper for them? TIMAEUS: Very true
Source: Plato, Timaeus

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Source: Project Gutenburg Texts