Quotes 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

“...and when one of them meets the other half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy and one will not be out of the other's sight, as I may say, even for a moment...”
― Plato, quote from The Symposium

“Love is simply the name for the desire and pursuit of the whole.”
― Plato, quote from The Symposium

“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

“And so, when a person meets the half that is his very own, whatever his orientation, whether it's to young men or not, then something wonderful happens: the two are struck from their senses by love, by a sense of belonging to one another, and by desire, and they don't want to be separated from one another, not even for a moment.”
― 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

“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

“He whom loves touches not walks in darkness.”
― Plato, quote from The Symposium

“...when he looks at Beauty in the only way that Beauty can be seen - only then will it become possible for him to give birth not to images of virtue (because he's in touch with no images), but to true virtue [arete] (because he is in touch with true Beauty). The love of the gods belongs to anyone who has given to true virtue and nourished it, and if any human being could become immortal, it would be he.”
― Plato, quote 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

“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

“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

“And I understood then that I was a fool when I told you I would take my turn in singing the honours of Love, and admitted I was terribly clever in love affairs, whereas it seems I really had no idea how a eulogy ought to be made. For I was stupid enough to think that we ought to speak the truth about each person eulogised, and to make this the foundation, and from these truths to choose the most beautiful things and arrange them in the most elegant way; and I was quite proud to think how well I should speak, because I believed that I knew the truth.”
― Plato, quote from The Symposium

“And Agathon said, It is probable, Socrates, that I knew nothing of what I had said.

And yet spoke you beautifully, Agathon, he said.”
― Plato, quote from The Symposium

“...each living creature is said to be alive and to be the same individual-- as for example someone is said to be the same person from when he is a child until he comes to be an old man. And yet, if he's called the same, that's despite the fact that he's never made up from the same things, but is always being renewed, and losing what he had before, whether it's hair, or flesh, or bones, or blood, in fact the whole body. And don't suppose that this is just true in the case of the body; in the case of the soul, too, its traits, habits, opinions, desires, pleasures, pains, fears-- none of these things is ever the same in any individual, but some are coming into existence, others passing away.”
― Plato, quote from The Symposium

“Love is of something, and that which love desires is not that which love is or has; for no man desires that which he is or has. And love is of the beautiful, and therefore has not the beautiful. And the beautiful is the good, and therefore, in wanting and desiring the beautiful, love also wants and desires the good.”
― Plato, quote from The Symposium

“Even now I'm well aware that if I allowed myself to listen to him I couldn't resist but would have the same experience again. He makes me admit that, in spite of my great defects, I neglect myself and instead get involved in Athenian politics. So I force myself to block my ears and go away, like someone escaping from the Sirens, to prevent myself sitting there beside him till I grow old.”
― 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

“καὶ οὗτος ἄρα καὶ ἄλλος πᾶς ὁ ἐπιθυμῶν τοῦ μὴ ἐτοίμου ἐπιθυμεῖ”
― 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

“Nor when love is of this disinterested sort is there any disgrace in being deceived, but in every other case there is equal disgrace in being or not being deceived. For he who is gracious to his lover under the impression that he is rich, and is disappointed of his gains because he turns out to be poor, is disgraced all the same: for he has done his best to show that he would give himself up to any one's "uses base" for the sake of money; but this is not honourable. And on the same principle he who gives himself to a lover because he is a good man, and in the hope that he will be improved by his company, shows himself to be virtuous, even though the object of his affection turn out to be a villain, and to have no virtue; and if he is deceived he has committed a noble error. For he has proved that for his part he will do anything for anybody with a view to virtue and improvement, than which there can be nothing nobler.”
― Plato, quote from The Symposium

“فاعترض الناس على هذا القول و قالوا كيف يرضى اللة سبحانة و تعالى فى هذا العالم الذى تقولون انة افضل العوالم و اعمها خيرا ان يهلك الفاضل العادل و يسعد الشرير فقالوا انما قلنا ان هذا العالم افضل العوالم امكانا و ان هناك ضرورات منطقية لا تدركها عقولنا تقضى ان يظهر الشر بجانب الخير و ربما كان حدوث الخير متوقفا على وقوع الشر!
و ان فانون التناسب الخلقى يقضى باجتماع الاضداد لتتميز الاشياء فلا يعرف الخير الا اذا عرف الشر كما انة لا يعرف النور بغير الظلام ولا الحر بغير البرد و انة ان لم يكن فى العالم باطل فلا محل للحق!!"
-مائدة افلاطون(كتاب)”
― Plato, quote from The Symposium

“‌آنچه كه سبب شود كه نيستي صورت هستي به خود گيرد آفرينش و خلاقيت است. از اين رو، همه هنر ها آفريدن است و استادان و هنر مندان، همه خلاق و آفرينش گرند ”
― Plato, quote from The Symposium

“Love is a great spirit. Everything spiritual is in between god and mortal.”
― 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

“The truth about eros is terrifying.”
― 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

“هرج و مرج عالم هستی را فراگرفته بود، تا اینکه زمین آفریده شد زمین مرکز ثقل اشیا گردید. و پس از آن عشق پدید آمد. پس زمین و عشق بودند که جانشین هرج و مرج و بی شکلی آغازین هستی شدند”
― Plato, quote from The Symposium

“Now actions vary according to the manner of their performance. Take, for example, that which we are now doing, drinking, singing and talking these actions are not in themselves either good or evil, but they turn out in this or that way according to the mode of performing them; and when well done they are good, and when wrongly done they are evil; and in like manner not every love, but only that which has a noble purpose, is noble and worthy of praise.”
― Plato, quote from The Symposium

“porque el camino recto del amor, ya se guíe por sí mismo, ya sea guiado por otro, es comenzar por las bellezas inferiores y elevarse hasta la belleza suprema, pasando, por decirlo así, por todos los grados de la escala de un solo cuerpo bello a dos, de dos a todos los demás, de los bellos cuerpos a las bellas ocupaciones, de las bellas ocupaciones a las bellas ciencias, hasta que de ciencia en ciencia se llega a la ciencia por excelencia, que no es otra que la ciencia de lo bello mismo, y se concluye por conocerla tal como es en sí.”
― Plato, quote from The Symposium

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