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Meno QUOTES

Meno QUOTES

1 " Socrates, I certainly used to hear, even before meeting you, that you never do anything else than exist in a state of perplexity yourself and put others in a state of perplexity. And now you seem to me to be bewitching me and drugging me and simply subduing me with incantations, so that I come to be full of perplexity. And you seem to me, if it is even appropriate to make something of a joke, to be altogether, both in looks and in other respects, like the flat torpedo fish of the sea. For, indeed, it always makes anyone who approaches and touches it grow numb, and you seem to me now to have done that very sort of thing to me, making me numb. For truly, both in soul and in mouth, I am numb and have nothing with which I can answer you. And yet thousands of times I have made a great many speeches about virtue, and before many people, and done very well, in my own opinion anyway; yet now I’m altogether unable to say what it is. "

― Plato , Meno

2 " I shouldn’t like to take my oath on the whole story, but one thing I am ready to fight for as long as I can, in word and act—that is, that we shall be better, braver, and more active men if we believe it right to look for what we don’t know than if we believe there is no point in looking because what we don’t know we can never discover. "

― Plato , Meno

3 " We do not learn, and that what we call learning is only a process of recollection. "

― Plato , Meno

4 " Virtue is the desire of things honourable and the power of attaining them. "

― Plato , Meno

5 " But that we shall be better and braver and less helpless if we think that we ought to enquire, than we should have been if we indulged in the idle fancy that there was no knowing and no use in seeking to know what we do not know;—that is a theme upon which I am ready to fight, in word and deed, to the utmost of my power. "

― Plato , Meno

6 " the good are not so by nature...For if they were, this would follow: if the good were so by nature, we would have people who knew which among the young were good by nature; we would take those whom they had pointed out and guard them in the Acropolis, sealing them up there much more carefully than gold so that no one could corrupt them, and when they reached maturity they would be useful to their cities. "

― Plato , Meno

7 " I mean this: we were right to agree that good men must be beneficent, and that this could not be otherwise. "

― Plato , Meno

8 " I would not swear that my argument is right down to the last
word, but I would fight to the last breath, both in word and deed, that we will be better
men – brave instead of lazy – if we will believe we must search for the things we do not
know; if we will refuse to believe it is not possible to find out what we do not know and
that there is no point in looking. "

― Plato , Meno

9 " When two friends, like you and me, are in the mood to chat, we have to go about it in a gentler and more dialectical way. By 'more dialectical,' I mean not only that we give real responses, but that we base our responses solely on what the interlocutor admits that he himself knows. "

― Plato , Meno

10 " Courage, for
example, when not based on forethought, is mere recklessness; when a man is
thoughtlessly confident, he gets hurt; but when he is mindful of what he does, things go
well. "

― Plato , Meno

11 " The same is true of patience or mental quickness. A brain like a sponge and an even
temper are all very well in one who minds the proper use of such things; to anyone else,
they may bring harm. "

― Plato , Meno

12 " If then virtue is something in the soul, and necessarily good, it must be a matter of
mindfulness. For all other qualities of soul are in themselves neither good nor harmful.
As accompanied by forethought or thoughtlessness, they become good or harmful. This
argument shows that virtue, being good, must be a kind of mindfulness. "

― Plato , Meno

13 " And that only these two things, true belief and knowledge, guide correctly, and that
if a man possesses these he gives correct guidance. The things that turn out right by
some chance are not due to human guidance, but where there is correct human
guidance it is due to two things, true belief or knowledge. "

― Plato , Meno

14 " So we would be right to say the seers and prophets just mentioned are ‘divine’ and
‘inspired’ – likewise, everyone with a knack for poetry. Likewise, politicians and public
figures are nothing less than divine and possessed when – under some god’s inspiration
and influence – they give speeches that lead to success in important matters, even they
have no idea what they are talking about. – Quite so. "

― Plato , Meno

15 " But for now, if
we have been right in how we investigated and what we said, virtue turns out to be
neither innate nor earned. It is something that comes to those who possess it as a free
gift from the gods – with understanding not included; unless, that is, you can point to
some statesmen who could make another man a statesman. If there were such a one, he
could be said to rank among the living as Homer said Teiresias ranked among the dead:
namely, ‘he alone kept his wits collected while the others flitted about like shadows.’
In the same way such a man would, as far as virtue is concerned, stand forth as
someone of substance – opposed, as it were, to mere shadows.

M: I think that is an excellent way to put it, Socrates

S: It follows from this whole line of reasoning, Meno, that virtue appears present in
those who have it only as a gift from the gods. We will only really know about this,
however, if and when we try to investigate what virtue itself is – an investigation that
must come before that of how it comes to be in men. But the time has come for me to go. "

― Plato , Meno

16 " And if we are good, we are beneficent: for all good things are beneficial. Are they not? "

― Plato , Meno