He tells a funny story-an elderly poet was asked: doesn’t he miss sex, in his old age? The poet responded that, “it gives me the greatest joy to have escaped the clutches of that savage and fierce master.” Old age, for the man who attempts to control his desires, is a kind of respite. However, it also brings with it “great peace and freedom from passions,” as well as impulses more generally. Is getting older really such a terrible thing?Ĭephalus responds that yes, aging undoubtedly has its negatives. In any event, Socrates asks him this question: The Question of Aging: But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young.” As Dumbledore says, “Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. And even though we haven’t experienced their stages of life, they’ve experienced ours.
#Timeless quotes socrates full#
We forget that they’ve lived full lives, experiencing and traversing many of the challenges that we currently face, or will encounter, in our own lives. He reminds us how much wisdom we can get from them, since “they have gone before us along a road which we must all travel in our turn.” It reminds me that we often view the elderly as though they sprang into existence as they are now. Socrates here tells us that we should never overlook the elderly in our midst. At the beginning of The Republic, Socrates is paying a visit to some friends-amongst them is a very old man named Cephalus, with whom Socrates strikes up a conversation. Plato’s writings are all in the dialogue style: conversations between people. The Republic is narrated by Socrates, who is the main character in most of Plato’s dialogues. But let’s go ahead and dive in! Book I: Aging and Wealth It’s a great, modern translation that provides some good context at the beginning. If you’re interested in reading along, I’ll be using this edition of The Republic, by Allan Bloom.
Through this exercise, I will briefly summarize a section of the text, pausing to unpack and discuss those ideas which I find particularly relevant or generally interesting, or those which have cast a long shadow through the succeeding ages.
#Timeless quotes socrates how to#
The ultimate goal is to get us thinking, to teach us how to think, and to live better and more ethically complete lives.
I believe that Plato intended his text to be read in this way: to pose questions and to get us to evaluate our beliefs, but also to have us critique the way he himself answers the questions. What does it tell us about how we should live our lives? Where does it agree and disagree, on these questions, with our own sources of morality and wisdom? How can we use its ideas and discussions to better practice our own ethical values and religions?īecause Plato’s Republic decidedly not a religious text however, we shall have no trouble in calling out and dispensing with those ideas that are ridiculous or even dangerous. I will, instead, look at The Republic as a timeless work of practical wisdom. The Practical Wisdom of Plato’s Republic: And though it can be valuable to understand The Republic as a historical text, that’s not what I’ll be doing here either. In some ways, its political philosophy is the least relevant part, politics having changed so much since 4th century BC Greece. In fact, I intend here to look at The Republic primarily not as a work of political philosophy. It is incredibly rich in thought-provoking questions and ideas, including the famous “Allegory of the Cave,” the “Theory of Forms,” and Plato’s unusual vision of an afterlife. However, The Republic is much more complex than a work of political philosophy. Plato’s Republic is regarded as the first work of political philosophy, and it frames the way that people will discuss the subject at least down until Machiavelli’s time.
#Timeless quotes socrates series#
There’s a famous quote that “all of Western philosophy is simply a series of footnotes to Plato.” I think the quote probably exaggerates, but it does express a real idea: the questions that Plato asks, and the way he asks them, become fundamentals in philosophy ever after. Is it true? Are money and youth the keys to happiness? These are the questions we deal with at the beginning of Plato’s Republic. A common view says that there’s nothing worse in the world than old age, nothing better than youth.
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