Plato’s philosophical masterpiece The Symposium addresses the core of love and desire via a series of speeches delivered by different characters during a dinner party.
It is regarded as one of Plato’s most well-known and important writings.
Here are some of the most read quotes from The Symposium by Plato.
Table of Contents
The Symposium Quotes by Plato
“At that point they all agreed not to get drunk that evening; they decided to drink only as much as pleased them.” ~ Plato (quote from The Symposium).
“Itself, by itself, solely, one everlasting, and single.” ~ Plato (quote from The Symposium).
“Consider, too, how great is the encouragement which all the world gives to the lover; neither is he supposed to be doing anything dishonourable; but if he succeeds he is praised, and if he fail he is blamed.” ~ Plato (quote from The Symposium).
“The truth is that we isolate a particular kind of love and appropriate it for the name of love, which really belongs to a wider whole.” ~ Plato (quote from The Symposium).
“Surely you don’t consider me so inflated with the theater as not even to know that for anyone in his right mind a sensible few are more terrifying than a foolish many.” ~ Plato (quote from The Symposium).
“The first of the two loves has a noble purpose, and delights only in the intelligent nature of man, and is faithful to the end, and has no shadow of wantonness or lust. The second is the coarser kind of love, which is a love of the body rather than of the soul, and is of women and boys as well as of men.” ~ Plato (quote from The Symposium).
“Yet as the proverb says, ‘In vino veritas,’ whether with boys, or without them (In allusion to two proverbs.); and therefore I must speak.” ~ Plato (quote from The Symposium).
Quotes from The Symposium
“He feels particularly ashamed if ever he is seen by his lovers to be invovled in something dishonourable.” ~ Plato (quote from The Symposium).
“Love is merely the name for the desire and pursuit of the whole.” ~ Plato (quote from The Symposium).
“For what lover would not choose rather to be seen by all mankind than by his beloved, either when abandoning his post or throwing away his arms? He would be ready to die a thousand deaths rather than endure this.” ~ Plato (quote from The Symposium).
“And so, from such early times human beings have had Love for one another inborn in them — Love, reassembler of our ancient nature, who tries to make one out of two and to heal human nature.” ~ Plato (quote from The Symposium).
“He whom loves touches not walks in darkness.” ~ Plato (quote from The Symposium).
“I can’t refute you, Socrates,” Agathon said, “so I dare say you’re right.” “No,” said Socrates, “it’s the truth you can’t refute, my dear Agathon. Socrates is a pushover.” ~ Plato (quote from The Symposium).
“Let him alone, he has a way of stopping anywhere and losing himself without any reason. I believe that he will soon appear; do not therefore disturb him.” ~ Plato (quote from The Symposium).
Other Book Quotes: Who Moved My Cheese Quotes by Spencer Johnson and The Power of One Quotes by Bryce Courtenay
Best Symposium Quotes by Plato
“Love is born into every human being; it calls back the halves of our original nature together; it tries to make one out of two and heal the wound of human nature.” ~ Plato (quote from The Symposium).
“So where it is a general rule that it is wrong to gratify lovers, this can be attributed to the defects of those who make that rule: the government’s lust for rule and the subjects’ cowardice” ~ Plato (quote from The Symposium).
“But when I hear other kinds of discussion, especially the talk of rich businessmen like you, I get bored and feel sorry for you and your friends, because you think you’re doing something important, when your’re not. Perhaps you regard me as a failure, and I think you’re right. But I don’t THINK you’re a failure, I KNOW you are.” ~ Plato (quote from The Symposium).
“But when I hear other kinds of discussion, especially the talk of rich businessmen like you, I get bored and feel sorry for you and your friends, because you think you’re doing something important, when you’re not. Perhaps you regard me as a failure, and I think you’re right. But I don’t THINK you’re a failure, I KNOW you are.” ~ Plato (quote from The Symposium).
“What if the man could see Beauty Itself, pure, unalloyed, stripped of mortality, and all its pollution, stains, and vanities, unchanging, divine,…the man becoming in that communion, the friend of God, himself immortal;…would that be a life to disregard?” ~ Plato (quote from The Symposium).
“Love is simply the name for the desire and pursuit of the whole.” ~ Plato (quote from The Symposium).
“The vulgar love of the body which takes wing and flies away when the bloom of youth is over, is disgraceful, and so is the interested love of power or wealth; but the love of the noble mind is lasting.” ~ Plato (quote from The Symposium).
Powerful The Symposium Quotes
“According to Diotima, Love is not a god at all, but is rather a spirit that mediates between people and the objects of their desire. Love is neither wise nor beautiful, but is rather the desire for wisdom and beauty.” ~ Plato (quote from The Symposium).
“For, observe that open loves are held to be more honourable than secret ones, and that the love of the noblest and highest, even if their persons are less beautiful than others, is especially honourable.” ~ Plato (quote from The Symposium).
“I pity you who are my companions, because you think that you are doing something when in reality you are doing nothing.” ~ Plato (quote from The Symposium).
“For harmony is a symphony, and symphony is an agreement; but an agreement of disagreements while they disagree there cannot be; you cannot harmonize that which disagrees.” ~ Plato (quote from The Symposium).
“It is no good for rulers if the people they rule cherish ambitions for themselves or form strong bonds of friendship with one another.” ~ Plato (quote from The Symposium).
“Human nature was originally one and we were a whole, and the pursuit of the whole is called love.” ~ Plato (quote from The Symposium).
“Evil is the vulgar lover who loves the body rather than the soul, inasmuch as he is not even stable, because he loves a thing which is in itself unstable, and therefore when the bloom of youth which he was desiring is over, he takes wing and flies away, in spite of all his words and promises; whereas the love of the noble disposition is life-long, for it becomes one with the everlasting” ~ Plato (quote from The Symposium).
“Because to the mortal creature, generation is a sort of eternity and immortality,’ she replied; ‘and if, as has been already admitted, love is of the everlasting possession of the good, all men will necessarily desire immortality together with good: Wherefore love is of immortality.” ~ Plato (quote from The Symposium).
“It is not Love absolutely that is good or praiseworthy, but only that Love which impels meant to love aright.” ~ Plato (quote from The Symposium).
“And the love, more especially, which is concerned with the good, and which is perfected in company with temperance and justice, whether among gods or men, has the greatest power, and is the source of all our happiness and harmony, and makes us friends with the gods who are above us, and with one another.” ~ Plato (quote from The Symposium).
Insightful Symposium Quotes by Plato
“At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet” ~ Plato (quote from The Symposium).
“It looks, Socrates, as though I didn’t know what I was talking about then.” ~ Plato (quote from The Symposium).
“All of a sudden he will catch sight of something wonderfully beautiful in its nature; that, Socrates, is the reason for all his earlier labors” ~ Plato (quote from The Symposium).
“Love’ is the name for our pursuit of wholeness, for our desire to be complete.” ~ Plato (quote from The Symposium).
“Love is a great spirit. Everything spiritual is in between god and mortal.” ~ Plato (quote from The Symposium).
“The creative soul creates not children, but conceptions of wisdom and virtue,” ~ Plato (quote from The Symposium).
“According to Greek mythology, humans were originally created with four arms, four legs and a head with two faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves.” ~ Plato (quote from The Symposium).
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