Quote #45

As Themistocles answered Seriphian who was abusing him and saying that he was famous not for his own merits but because he was an Athenian: 'If you had been a native of my country or I of yours, neither of us would have been famous.'

More from Plato

  1. No human thing is of serious importance.
  2. The tools which would teach men their own use would be beyond price.
  3. When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring u…
  4. And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and other objects in the water, and then the objects themselves, then h…
  5. The people have always some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness. ...This and no other is the root from which a tyrant…
  6. If you can discover a better way of life than office-holding for your future rulers, a well-governed city becomes a possibility. For only i…
  7. Democracy passes into despotism.
  8. Poetry and philosophy are always hostile to each other.

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