No law or ordinance is mightier than understanding.
Meaning of the quote
The quote means that having a deep understanding of something is more powerful than just having a rule or law about it. No matter how many rules we make, truly understanding the reason behind those rules is what really gives us strength and control. It's more important to learn and comprehend things deeply rather than just follow orders blindly.
About Plato
Plato was an ancient Greek philosopher who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy. He founded the Platonic Academy, where he taught his renowned theory of forms. Plato’s works have been studied and influential for over 2,400 years, shaping both Western and Eastern philosophy.
More quotes from Plato
At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
All things will be produced in superior quantity and quality, and with greater ease, when each man works at a single occupation, in accordance with his natural gifts, and at the right moment, without meddling with anything else.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Democracy passes into despotism.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Philosophy begins in wonder.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Man – a being in search of meaning.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
The curse of me and my nation is that we always think things can be bettered by immediate action of some sort, any sort rather than no sort.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Any man may easily do harm, but not every man can do good to another.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Whatever deceives men seems to produce a magical enchantment.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Your silence gives consent.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Know one knows whether death, which people fear to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Wisdom alone is the science of other sciences.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Hardly any human being is capable of pursuing two professions or two arts rightly.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
States are as the men, they grow out of human characters.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Excess generally causes reaction, and produces a change in the opposite direction, whether it be in the seasons, or in individuals, or in governments.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Man is a wingless animal with two feet and flat nails.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
All the gold which is under or upon the earth is not enough to give in exchange for virtue.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Love is the joy of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the Gods.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
The excessive increase of anything causes a reaction in the opposite direction.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Death is not the worst that can happen to men.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
If a man neglects education, he walks lame to the end of his life.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
No trace of slavery ought to mix with the studies of the freeborn man. No study, pursued under compulsion, remains rooted in the memory.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
They do certainly give very strange, and newfangled, names to diseases.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
I shall assume that your silence gives consent.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
The blame is his who chooses: God is blameless.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Ignorance of all things is an evil neither terrible nor excessive, nor yet the greatest of all; but great cleverness and much learning, if they be accompanied by a bad training, are a much greater misfortune.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Philosophy is the highest music.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Then not only an old man, but also a drunkard, becomes a second time a child.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
For good nurture and education implant good constitutions.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
The most virtuous are those who content themselves with being virtuous without seeking to appear so.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state?
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help, and what they cannot.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
To love rightly is to love what is orderly and beautiful in an educated and disciplined way.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Excess of liberty, whether it lies in state or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Necessity… the mother of invention.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
No one is a friend to his friend who does not love in return.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
The measure of a man is what he does with power.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Justice in the life and conduct of the State is possible only as first it resides in the hearts and souls of the citizens.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
There must always remain something that is antagonistic to good.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing more to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Life must be lived as play.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Democracy… is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder; and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
When the mind is thinking it is talking to itself.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Those who intend on becoming great should love neither themselves nor their own things, but only what is just, whether it happens to be done by themselves or others.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
They certainly give very strange names to diseases.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Cunning… is but the low mimic of wisdom.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
As the builders say, the larger stones do not lie well without the lesser.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
No law or ordinance is mightier than understanding.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Man never legislates, but destinies and accidents, happening in all sorts of ways, legislate in all sorts of ways.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
The beginning is the most important part of the work.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Then not only custom, but also nature affirms that to do is more disgraceful than to suffer injustice, and that justice is equality.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Attention to health is life greatest hindrance.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
All men are by nature equal, made all of the same earth by one Workman; and however we deceive ourselves, as dear unto God is the poor peasant as the mighty prince.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Justice means minding one’s own business and not meddling with other men’s concerns.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
It is right to give every man his due.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
For the introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state; since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Science is nothing but perception.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
To go to the world below, having a soul which is like a vessel full of injustice, is the last and worst of all the evils.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
We ought to esteem it of the greatest importance that the fictions which children first hear should be adapted in the most perfect manner to the promotion of virtue.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Thinking: the talking of the soul with itself.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
This City is what it is because our citizens are what they are.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
I would fain grow old learning many things.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Our object in the construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
The highest reach of injustice is to be deemed just when you are not.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Nothing can be more absurd than the practice that prevails in our country of men and women not following the same pursuits with all their strengths and with one mind, for thus, the state instead of being whole is reduced to half.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Virtue is relative to the actions and ages of each of us in all that we do.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
He who commits injustice is ever made more wretched than he who suffers it.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Not to help justice in her need would be an impiety.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
He who is not a good servant will not be a good master.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Must not all things at the last be swallowed up in death?
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Wonder is the feeling of the philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Apply yourself both now and in the next life. Without effort, you cannot be prosperous. Though the land be good, You cannot have an abundant crop without cultivation.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
The community which has neither poverty nor riches will always have the noblest principles.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
The learning and knowledge that we have, is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
We are twice armed if we fight with faith.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
We ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him is to become holy, just, and wise.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Let parents bequeath to their children not riches, but the spirit of reverence.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
He who is of calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Truth is the beginning of every good to the gods, and of every good to man.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
No man should bring children into the world who is unwilling to persevere to the end in their nature and education.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Injustice is censured because the censures are afraid of suffering, and not from any fear which they have of doing injustice.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
There is no harm in repeating a good thing.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Entire ignorance is not so terrible or extreme an evil, and is far from being the greatest of all; too much cleverness and too much learning, accompanied with ill bringing-up, are far more fatal.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
We do not learn; and what we call learning is only a process of recollection.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
To suffer the penalty of too much haste, which is too little speed.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Courage is knowing what not to fear.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Love is a serious mental disease.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Courage is a kind of salvation.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future in life.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
If particulars are to have meaning, there must be universals.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
It is clear to everyone that astronomy at all events compels the soul to look upwards, and draws it from the things of this world to the other.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Wealth is well known to be a great comforter.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
The man who makes everything that leads to happiness depends upon himself, and not upon other men, has adopted the very best plan for living happily. This is the man of moderation, the man of manly character and of wisdom.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
The good is the beautiful.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
When a Benefit is wrongly conferred, the author of the Benefit may often be said to injure.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
There’s a victory, and defeat; the first and best of victories, the lowest and worst of defeats which each man gains or sustains at the hands not of another, but of himself.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
To prefer evil to good is not in human nature; and when a man is compelled to choose one of two evils, no one will choose the greater when he might have the less.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
The rulers of the state are the only persons who ought to have the privilege of lying, either at home or abroad; they may be allowed to lie for the good of the state.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
A hero is born among a hundred, a wise man is found among a thousand, but an accomplished one might not be found even among a hundred thousand men.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
The most important part of education is proper training in the nursery.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
When men speak ill of thee, live so as nobody may believe them.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Better a little which is well done, than a great deal imperfectly.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the government of worse men.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Knowledge without justice ought to be called cunning rather than wisdom.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
People are like dirt. They can either nourish you and help you grow as a person or they can stunt your growth and make you wilt and die.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
A state arises, as I conceive, out of the needs of mankind; no one is self-sufficing, but all of us have many wants.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
There is no such thing as a lovers’ oath.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
He was a wise man who invented beer.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
The wisest have the most authority.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
It is a common saying, and in everybody’s mouth, that life is but a sojourn.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
One man cannot practice many arts with success.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
The greatest wealth is to live content with little.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
The gods’ service is tolerable, man’s intolerable.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
And what, Socrates, is the food of the soul? Surely, I said, knowledge is the food of the soul.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
No one ever teaches well who wants to teach, or governs well who wants to govern.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
The eyes of the soul of the multitudes are unable to endure the vision of the divine.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Knowledge is true opinion.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
He who steals a little steals with the same wish as he who steals much, but with less power.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)
Twice and thrice over, as they say, good is it to repeat and review what is good.
Greek philosopher (c. 427 - 348 BC)