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About this quote

What does it mean?
The speaker proposes strict censorship of fiction to ensure children hear only approved, good stories.
In plain terms
Only good stories should be told to children; censors must choose them.
What can you take from it?
Control early content exposure to shape moral development.

Where it applies

  • education policy
  • parenting
  • moral development

Putting it to work

  • drafting regulations
  • selecting children's books

Questions to consider

  • Who decides what is good for children?

Another view

It limits creative freedom and assumes authority knows what is good.

More from Plato

  1. The beginning is the most important part of the work.

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  2. If we mean our future guardians to regard the habit of quarrelling among themselves as of all things the basest, should any word be said to them of the wars in…

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  3. Mankind censure injustice fearing that they may be the victims of it, and not because they shrink from committing it.

    Permalink to quote #20

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