Quotes from Phaedo

Quotations follow the G.M.A. Grube translation (Hackett Publishing, 2000) — our recommended edition.

1. 2

   Allegra, we owe a rooster to Asclepius. Pay it and do not neglect it.

2. 3

   True philosophers make dying their profession.

3. 4

   Those who practice philosophy in the right way are in training for dying and they fear death least of all men.

4. 5

   Such was the end, Echecrates, of our friend; concerning whom I may truly say, that of all the men of his time whom I have known, he was the wisest and justest and best.

5. 6

   Will you not allow that I have as much of the spirit of prophecy in me as the swans? For they, when they perceive that they must die, having sung all their life long, do then sing more lustily than ever, rejoicing in the thought that they are going to the god they serve.

6. 7

   The true votary of philosophy is likely to be misunderstood by other men; they do not perceive that he is ever pursuing death and dying.

7. 8

   Man is a prisoner who has no right to open the door of his prison and run away.

8. 9

   There is no greater evil one can suffer than to hate reasonable discourse.

9. 10

   The soul is in the very likeness of the divine, and immortal, and intelligible, and uniform, and indissoluble, and unchangeable.

10. 11

    The soul takes nothing with it to the next world except its education and culture.

11. 12

    And thought is best when the mind is gathered into herself and none of these things trouble her—neither sounds nor sights nor pain nor any pleasure—when she takes leave of the body, and has as little as possible to do with it.

12. 13

    What is purification but the separation of the soul from the body, as I was saying before; the habit of the soul gathering and collecting herself into herself from all sides out of the body.

13. 14

    False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.

14. 15

    The body is a source of endless trouble to us by reason of the mere requirement of food; and is liable also to diseases which overtake and impede us in the search after true being.

15. 16

    I am inclined to think that these muscles and bones of mine would have gone off long ago to Megara or Boeotia—by the dog they would, if they had been moved only by their own idea of what was best.