Plato Quotes on Desire (4 Quotes)

There is in every one of us, even those who seem to be most moderate, a type of desire that is terrible, wild, and lawless.

The democratic youth lives along day by day, gratifying the desire that occurs to him, at one time drinking and listening to the flute, at another downing water and reducing, now practicing gymnastic, and again idling and neglecting everything and sometimes spending his time as though he were occupied in philosophy.

The true lover of learning then must his earliest youth, as far as in him lies, desire all truth.... He whose desires are drawn toward knowledge in every form will be absorbed in the pleasures of the soul, and will hardly feel bodily pleasures I mean, if he be a true philosopher and not a sham one ... Then how can he who has the magnificence of mind and is the spectator of all times and all existence, think much of human life He cannot. Or can such a one account death fearful No indeed.

Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.