H
Habit. His virtue was a matter of habit only. — Republic, X, 619.
The other qualities seem to be akin to the body, being infused by habit and exercise and not originally innate. — Republic, VII, 518.
In infancy more than at any other time the character is ingrained by habit. — Laws, VII, 792.
There is no difference to be found in the use of the feet and the lower limbs; but in the use of the left hand we are in a manner lame, by reason of the folly of nurses and mothers. For although our limbs are by nature balanced, we created a difference in them by bad habit. — Laws, VII, 794.
There are persons, whose natures are right and their habits wrong, or whose habits are right and their natures wrong. — Laws, II, 655.
Hail. Water compressed above the earth is called hail. — Timaeus, 59.
Hair. The part about the brain needs hair to be a light covering or guard, which gives shade in summer and shelter in winter, and at the same time does not impede our quickness of perception. — Timaeus, 76.
Half. The half is relative to the double. — Charmides, 168.
Hesiod said that the half is often greater than the whole. His meaning was, that when the whole was injurious and the half moderate, then the moderate was more and better than the immoderate. — Laws, III, 690.
Half-truths. Some persons were crammed with philosophical half-truths. — Letter, VII, 338.
Handbook. He has written a handbook, claiming that its ideas in which I instructed him were his own. — Letter, VII, 341.
Handsome. You are handsome, Theaetetus; for he who utters the handsome is himself handsome and good. — Theaetetus, 185.
A blindfolded man has only to hear you talking, and he would know that you are a handsome youth. For you always speak in imperatives: like all beauties when they are in their prime, you are tyrannical. — Meno, 76.
Happiness. Do not all men desire happiness? And yet, perhaps, this is one of those ridiculous questions which I am afraid to ask, and which ought not to be asked by a sensible man: for what human being is there who does not desire happiness? — Euthydemus, 278.
The several classes will have to receive the proportion of happiness which nature assigns to them. — Republic, IV, 421.
He has not caught the accent of speech which praises the true life of happiness. — Theaetetus, 176.
I should say that happiness is the most precious of human possessions. — Eryxias, 393.
State and individual can attain happiness only through just conduct, whether one be guided by his own sense of justice or by just habits acquired under the rule of righteous men. — Letter VII, 335.
Happiness consists in never having known evils rather than in being delivered from them. — Gorgias, 478.
He whose happiness rests with himself, has his life ordered for the best. — Menexenus, 247.
The matters at issue between us are not trifling; to know or not to know happiness and misery — that is the sum of them. And what knowledge can be nobler than this? or what ignorance more disgraceful? — Gorgias, 472.
Happiness consists in education and justice. Then men and women who are noble and good are also happy, and the unjust and evil are also miserable. — Gorgias, 470.
Let us place the most just by the side of the most unjust, and then we shall be able to compare the relative happiness or unhappiness of pure justice and pure injustice; this will complete the inquiry. — Republic, VIII, 545.
The lover of the good is longing for happiness. For men are made happy by the acquisition of the good. And there is no need to ask why a man desires happiness; the answer is already final. — Symposium, 204, 205.
You say that pleasure, and I say that intelligence, is a state of happiness. — Philebus, 11.
We have not yet discovered whether by acting according to wisdom we shall be happy. — Charmides, 173.
The more wise and temperate you are, the happier you will be. — Charmides, 176.
Shall we not be happy if we have many good things? — Euthydemus, 279.
Should we be happy by reason of the presence of good things, if they profited us not, or if they profited us? — Euthydemus, 280.
Happy indeed would be the condition of youth if they had one corrupter only, and all the rest of the world were their improvers. — Apology, 25.
You cannot tell at once, and without having an acquaintance with him, whether a man is happy. — Gorgias, 470.
The just is happy, and the unjust miserable. — Republic, I, 354.
Many men who do wrong are happy. — Gorgias, 470.
They are quite ready to call wicked men happy. — Republic, II, 364.
Some say without any qualification that all who feel pleasure are happy, whatever may be the moral character of their pleasure. — Gorgias, 494.
If pleasant, then also happy? — Gorgias, 494.
If we are looking for that art which is to make us happy, and which is able to use that which it makes or takes, the art of the general is not the one, and some other must be found. — Euthydemus, 290.
A man who would be happy must not only have the good things, but he must also use them; there is no advantage in merely having them. — Euthydemus, 280.
He who lives well will be blessed and happy, and he who lives ill unhappy. — Republic, I, 354.
Women and children foolishly apply the term “happy” to the rich. Such usage makes those who apply it envious. — Letter VIII, 355.
Those who want nothing are not truly said to be happy. — No, indeed, for then stones and the dead would be the happiest of all. — Gorgias, 492.
How can a man be happy who is the servant of anything? On the contrary, I plainly assert, that he who would truly live should have courage and intelligence to minister to his desires and to satisfy all his longings. — Gorgias, 492.
Which are the happier? Those who lead the justest, or those who lead the pleasantest life? — Laws, II, 662.
He who is not wise and good cannot be happy. — First Alcibiades, 134.
Hard. Simonides in using the word “hard” meant what all of us mean, not evil, but that which is not easy — that which takes a great deal of trouble. — Protagoras, 341.
That is called hard to which our flesh yields, and soft which yields to our flesh; and things are also termed hard and soft relatively to one another. — Timaeus, 62.
Hardness. The sense which is concerned with the quality of hardness is necessarily concerned also with the quality of softness, and only intimates to the soul that the same thing is felt to be hard and soft. — Republic, VII, 524.
Harm. They have done me no harm, although neither of them meant to do me any good. — Apology, 41.
Any man may easily do harm, but not every man can do good to another. — Laws, VIII, 843.
I know many things which are partly beneficial for men, and partly harmful; and others again which are neither beneficial nor harmful for men but for horses; and others not for animals but only for trees. — Protagoras, 334.
Harmony. He has in his own life a harmony of words and deeds arranged. — Laches, 188.
Harmony is a symphony, and symphony is an agreement; but an agreement of disagreements while they disagree cannot exist; there is no harmony of discord and disagreement. ... There is an absurdity in saying that harmony is disagreement; harmony is composed of differing notes of higher or lower pitch which disagreed once, but are now reconciled by the art of music. — Symposium, 187.
Harmony of the soul, when perfected, is virtue. — Laws, II, 653.
Harmony, which has motions akin to the revolutions of our souls, is not regarded by him who intelligently uses the Muses as given by them with a view to irrational pleasure, which is the prevailing opinion, but with a view to the inharmonious course of the soul, and as an ally for the purpose of reducing this into harmony and agreement with itself. — Timaeus, 47.
His first object will be not that he may be fair or strong or well, unless he is likely thereby to gain temperance, but he will be always desirous of preserving the harmony of the body for the sake of the concord of the soul. — Republic, IX, 591.
He who intends to be a harmonist must certainly know the things you mention, and yet he may understand nothing of harmony if he has not got beyond the preliminaries of harmony. — Phaedrus, 268.
The restoration of harmony and return to nature is the source of pleasure, if I may be allowed to speak in the fewest and shortest words about matters of the greatest moment. — Philebus, 31.
And when a beautiful soul harmonizes with a beautiful bodily form, and the two are cast in one mold, that will be the fairest of sights to him who has an eye to see it. — Republic, III, 402.
The life of man in every part has need of harmony and rhythm. — Protagoras, 326.
Harp Player. The harp player is certainly a better partner than the just man in playing the harp. — Republic, I, 333.
Harvest. The participation of fruits shall be ordered on this wise. The goddess of harvest has two gracious gifts: one the joy of Dionysus which is not treasured up; the other, which nature intends to be stored. — Laws, VIII, 844.
Haste. To be hasty in coming to a conclusion about important matters, would be very childish and simple. — Laws, I, 635.
The more haste the less speed. — Republic, VII, 528; Statesman, 264.
Hatred. As they hate ruthlessly and horribly, so are they hated. — Laws, III, 697.
What sort of difference creates hatred and anger? Suppose for example that you and I differ about a number; do differences of this sort make us hate one another? Do we not settle at once the issue by calculation?... But there are moral differences about which we grow wrathful. — Euthyphro, 7.
Head. The head could neither be left a bare frame of bones, on account of the extremes of heat and cold in the different seasons, nor be allowed to be wholly covered, and so become dull and senseless by an overgrowth of flesh. — Timaeus, 75.
The head is the masterly chief which by nature holds all the ruling senses. — Laws, XII, 943.
The gods, imitating the spherical shape of the universe, inclosed the two divine courses in the spherical body, that, namely, which we now term the head, being the most spiritual part of us and the lord of all that is in us. — Timaeus, 44.
The marrow which, like a field, was to receive the intelligent seed, he made round every way, and called that portion of the marrow “brain,” intending that, when an animal was perfected, the vessel containing this substance should be the head. — Timaeus, 73.
Headache. He has been complaining lately of having a headache when he rises in the morning. — Charmides, 155.
There is a constant suspicion that headache and giddiness are to be ascribed to philosophy, and hence all practicing of virtue in the higher sense is absolutely stopped; for a man is always fancying that he is being ill by it. — Republic, III, 407.
The headache will be an unexpected benefit to my young relation, if the pain in his head compels him to improve his mind. — Charmides, 157.
Health. Would he be the happier man in his bodily condition, who is healed, or who never was out of health? — Gorgias, 478.
There are many persons who appear to be in good health, and whom only a physician will discern at first sight not to be in good health. — Gorgias, 464.
Health is a good. — Lysis, 219.
The creation of health is the institution of a natural order and government of one by another in the parts of the body. — Republic, IV, 444.
In health the pleasure exceeds the pain. — Laws, V, 734.
Nothing is pleasanter than health. But then they never knew this to be the greatest of pleasures until they were ill. — Republic, IX, 583.
I should say that health, regarded as health, is the same, whether of man or woman. — Meno, 72.
Hearing. We may assume sound to be a blow which passes through the ears, and is transmitted by means of the air, the brain, and the blood, to the soul, and that hearing is the motion of this blow, which begins in the head and ends in the region of the liver. — Timaeus, 67.
The pleasant beauty comes through the senses of hearing and sight. — Greater Hippias, 298.
Heart. The gods placed the lung about the heart as a soft spring, that, when anger was rife in it, the heart, beating against the yielding body, might be refreshed and alleviated, and might thus become more ready to accompany passion in the service of reason. — Timaeus, 70.
Hearth. The soil and the hearth of the house of all men is sacred to all gods. — Laws, XII, 955.
Heat. Heat is not the same as fire, nor is cold the same as snow. — Phaedo, 103.
The original figure of fire has a dividing power which cuts our bodies into small pieces, and thus naturally produces that affection to which we give the name of heat. — Timaeus, 62.
Heaven. Opinion once prevailed among men, that the sun and stars are without souls. But if these bodies were things without soul, and had no mind, they could never move according to such exact calculations. And even at that time some ventured to hazard the conjecture that mind is the orderer of all things that there are in heaven. — Laws, XII, 967.
What they saw before their eyes in heaven, all appeared to be full only of stones, and earth, and many other lifeless bodies. Such studies gave rise to much atheism and perplexity, and the poets took occasion to be abusive — comparing the philosophers to she-dogs, uttering vain howlings, and saying other nonsense of the same sort. But now the case is reversed. — Laws, XII, 967.
The argument from the order of motion of the heavens leads men to believe in the gods. If a man looks upon the heaven not lightly and foolishly, he is not so godless, as not to experience a godly effect opposite to that which the many imagine. For these many think that those who handle these matters by the help of astronomy, may become godless; because they see, as far as they can see, things happening by necessity, and not by an intelligent will acomplishing good. — Laws, XII, 966.
Heavy. Heavy and light may be termed either from different points of view. — Republic, V, 479.
Heir. He who makes testamentary dispositions, being a father and having children, shall first of all inscribe as his heir any one of his sons whom he may think fit. If the testator has no sons, but only daughters, let him choose the husband of any one of his daughters, and leave and inscribe him as his son and heir. — Laws, XI, 923.
Help. Let brother help brother. — Republic, II, 362.
We must endeavor to be increasingly helpful to one another. — Letter XIII, 360.
Heracles. Heracles himself is said not to be a match for two. — Phaedo, 89.
Heraclitus. Heraclitus is of the opinion that all things flow and nothing stands; the pushing principle is the cause and ruling power of all things. — Cratylus, 401.
Heraclitus is supposed to say that all things are in motion and nothing at rest; he compares them to the stream of a river, and says that you cannot go into the same water twice. — Cratylus, 403.
Herd. Here is a new division of herds, into land herds and water herds. — Statesman, 264.
Hermes. Zeus feared that the human race would, by internal strife, be exterminated and so he sent Hermes to them, bearing reverence and justice to be the ordering principles of states and the bonds of friendship and conciliation. — Protagoras, 322.
Hero. I doubt whether any muscular hero would be as fearless and confident in offering his body, as you are in offering your mind. — Lesser Hippias, 364.
The hero who has distinguished himself shall receive honor in the army from his youthful comrades; every one of them in succession shall crown him. — Republic, V, 468.
Hesiod. Hesiod says, “Hardly can a man become good, for the gods have placed toil in front of virtue; but when he has reached the goal, then the retainment of virtue, however difficult the acquisition, is easy.” — Protagoras, 340.
Hiccough. Let me recommend you to hold your breath, and if this fails, then to gargle with a little water; and if the hiccough still continues, tickle your nose with something and sneeze; and if you sneeze once or twice, even the most violent hiccough is sure to go. — Symposium, 185.
Either he has eaten too much, or from some other cause he has the hiccough. — Symposium, 185.
Hoar Frost. Water which is congealed in a less degree and is only half solid, when upon the earth, and condensed from dew, is called hoar frost. — Timaeus, 59.
Holding One to His Word. I certainly shall not hold you to your word if you now make a different statement. — Protagoras, 349.
Holiness. Holiness or piety is the art of attending to the gods. — Euthyphro, 13.
I cannot simply agree that holiness is justice and that justice is holiness, for there appears to me to be a difference between them. — Protagoras, 331.
Nothing can be holy if holiness is not holy. — Protagoras, 330.
The holy has been acknowledged by us to be loved because it is holy, not to be holy because it is loved. — Euthyphro, 10.
Homer. Homer is the best and most divine of all poets. — Ion, 530.
Homer knows all things human, virtue as well as vice. — Republic, X, 598.
You are possessed by Homer; when anyone reads the verses of another poet you go to sleep, and you know not what to say. But when anyone recites a strain of Homer you wake up in a moment, and your soul dances within you, and you have plenty to say. — Ion, 536.
What is the reason why I lose attention and start dozing and have absolutely no ideas, when anyone speaks of any other poet; but when Homer is mentioned, I wake up at once and am all attention and have plenty to say? — Ion, 532.
I say that Homer intended Achilles to be the bravest of those who went to Troy, and Nestor the wisest, and Odysses the wiliest. — Lesser Hippias, 364.
You praise Homer not by science but by poetical inspiration. — Ion, 536.
I have heard that the Iliad of Homer is a finer poem than the Odyssey in the same degree that Achilles was a better man than Odysseus. — Lesser Hippias, 363.
Homicide. I do indeed believe that to be an involuntary homicide is a less crime than to be a deceiver about goodness or justice. — Republic, V, 451.
Avarice is the chiefest cause and source of voluntary homicide, and hence the worst trials arise. A second cause is the habit of ambition: this creates jealousies, which are troublesome companions, above all to the jealous man himself. And a third cause is cowardly and unjust fear: this has been the occasion of many murders. When a man is doing or has done something which he desires that no one should know it, he will take the life of those who are likely to inform of such things, if he have no other means of getting rid of them. — Laws, IX, 870.
If a beast of burden or other animal cause homicide, except in the case of anything of that kind happening in the public contests, the kinsmen of the deceased shall prosecute the slayer for murder, and the wardens of the country shall try the cause, and let the beast when condemned be slain by them, and cast beyond the borders. — Laws, IX, 873.
They say that homicidal crimes will be punished in the world below, and that when the perpetrators return to this world they will suffer what they did by a natural retribution, and end their lives in like manner by the hand of another. — Laws, IX, 870.
If anyone in an athletic contest, and at the public games, involuntarily kills a friend, when he has been expiated by purification according to the law, he shall be innocent. — Laws, IX, 865.
Homosexuality. When the homosexuals reach manhood, they are lovers of youth, and are not naturally inclined to marry or beget children, which they do, if at all, only in obedience to the law, but they are satisfied if they may be allowed to live unwedded; and such a nature is prone to love and ready to return love, and always embracing that which is sexually akin to him. — Symposium, 192.
When a homosexual finds his other half, 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; yet they could not explain what they desire of one another. For the intense yearning which each of them has towards the other does not appear to be the desire of intercourse, but of something else which the soul desires and cannot tell, and of which she has only a dark and doubtful presentiment. — Symposium, 192.
Suppose Hephaistos to come to a homosexual pair who are lying side by side and say to them, “What do you people want of one another?” they would be unable to explain. And suppose further, that when he saw their perplexity he said: “Do you desire to be wholly one; always day and night to be in one another’s company? I am then ready to melt you into one” — there is not a homosexual man when he heard this proposal who would deny that this meeting and melting on one another’s arms, this becoming one instead of two, was the very expression of his ancient need. — Symposium, 192.
Those men who are inspired by this love turn to the male, and delight in him who is the more valiant and intelligent nature. — Symposium, 181.
The homosexual abuse of love has led some to deny the lawfulness of love when they see the impropriety and evil of attachments of this sort. — Symposium, 182.
The homosexual women don’t care for men, but have female attachments; the female companions are of the same sort. And the homosexual men follow a male; while they are young, they hang about him and embrace him, and they are themselves the best of boys and youths because they have the most manly nature. Some indeed assert that they are shameless, but this is not true; for they do not act thus from want of shame, but because they are valiant and manly, and have a manly countenance, and they embrace that which is like them. — Symposium, 192.
When they grow up, the homosexuals are our statesmen. — Symposium, 192.
In Ionia and other places, and generally in countries which are subject to the barbarians, homosexual loves of youths share the evil repute of philosophy and gymnastics, because they are inimical to tyranny.... In Elis and Boeotia, they are very straightforward; the universal sentiment is simply in favor of homosexual connections, and no one, whether young or old, has anything to say to their discredit. — Symposium, 182.
When the lover and beloved come together, having each of them a law, and the lover on his part is ready to confer any favor that he rightly can on his gracious loving one, and the other is ready to yield any compliance that he rightly can to him who is to make him wise and good; the one capable of communicating wisdom and virtue, the other seeking after knowledge, and making his object education and wisdom; when the two laws of love are fulfilled and meet in one — then, and then only, may the beloved yield with honor to the lover. All other loves are the offspring of the common or vulgar goddess. — Symposium, 184, 185
The homosexual practice is repugnant to the moral principle. Suppose we grant that this love is accounted by law to be honorable, or at least not disgraceful, how about virtue? Will such passion implant in the soul of him who is seduced the habit of courage, or in the soul of the seducer the principle of temperance? Who will ever believe this? or rather, who will not blame the effiminacy of him who yields to these pleasures and is unable to hold out against them? Will not all men censure as womanly him who acts like a woman? And what human being will establish by law such a practice? — Laws, VIII, 836.
As to homosexuals, there is a difficulty in determining what they are really seeking; moreover, they are drawn in opposite directions by their feelings — the one inviting them to enjoy the charms of their objects, the other forbidding them such enjoyment. — Laws, VII, 837.
All who are in the flower of their youth do in a manner raise a pang or emotion in a lover’s breast, and seem to be worthy of his affectionate regards. Is not this a way you have with the fair: one, because he has a snub nose, has the epithet “naive” used in his praise; another’s beak, as you say, has a royal look; while he who is neither snub nor hooked has a grace of regularity: the dark visage is manly, and the white are angels; and as to the sweet, “honey pale,” as they are called, what is the very name but the invention of a lover who uses these pet names, and is not averse to paleness on the cheek of youth? there is nothing you will not say, in order to preserve for your use every flower that has the bloom of youth. — Republic, V, 474, 475.
In the matter of homosexuality, as I may say it between ourselves, I must confess that the laws of Crete and Sparta are quite against us. For if anyone should declare that nature deprecates homosexual or unnatural lusts, adducing the animals as a proof that such unions were monstrous, he might prove his point, but he would be wholly at variance with the custom of those states. — Laws, VIII, 836.
I have a way to make men use natural love and abstain from unnatural, sowing the seeds of human increase in stony places, in which they will take no root. — Laws, VIII, 839.
Whether such practices are honorable or whether they are dishonorable is not a simple question; they are honorable to him who follows them honorably, dishonorable to him who follows them dishonorably. There is dishonor in yielding to the evil, or in an evil manner; but there is honor in yielding to the good, or in an honorable manner. — Symposium, 183.
As wolf to lamb, so lover to his lad. — Phaedrus, 241.
One can recognize the pure enthusiasts. For they love not boys, but intelligent beings whose reason is beginning to be developed, much about the time at which their beards begin to grow. And in choosing them as their companions, they mean to be faithful to them, and not to abuse their inexperience, and play the fool with them, or run away from one to another of them. — Symposium, 181.
The love which arises between the two sexes, is often horrible and coarse, lacking spiritual communion; but the homosexual love is gentle, and has a spiritual communion, which lasts through life. — Laws, VIII, 837.
Loving mere boys should be forbidden by law, because their future is uncertain; they may turn out good or bad, either in body or soul, and the affection which is devoted to them may be thrown away; in this the good are a law in themselves, and the coarser sort of lovers ought to be restrained by force. — Symposium, 181.
Honesty. They say that men ought to profess honesty whether they are honest or not, and that a man is out of his mind who does not make such a profession. Their notion is, that a man must have some degree of honesty; and that if he has none at all he ought not to be in the world. — Protagoras, 323.
They say that honesty is generally less profitable than dishonesty. — Republic, II, 364.
Honey. There is the diffuse class of things, which produce sweetness extending as far as the passages of the mouth; they are included under the general name of honey. — Timaeus, 60.
Honor. I am speaking of the sense of honor and dishonor, without which neither states nor individuals ever do any good or great work. — Symposium, 178.
Honor is a divine good. — Laws, V, 727.
Honor is not to be given to the fair, or the strong, or the swift, or the tall, or the healthy body (although this would be the opinion of the many), any more than to their opposites; but the mean states of all these habits are by far the safest and most moderate; for the one extreme makes the soul braggart and insolent, and the other illiberal and mean; and the possession of money, and property, and distinction, beats to the same tune. — Laws, V, 728.
Not being ambitious they do not care about honor. — Republic, I, 347,
They should entice the rulers with inducements of great honors. — Letter VII, 337.
Even to fail in an honorable object is honorable. — Phaedrus, 274.
Man should honor the living who are aged ... and his own parents. — Laws, XI, 927, 932.
When a man thinks that life at any price is a good, he does not honor his soul, but dishonors her. — Laws, V, 727.
He who thinks he can honor the soul by word or gift, or any sort of compliance, not making her in any way better, seems to honor her, but honors her not at all. For example, every man, in his very boyhood, fancies that he is able to know everything, and thinks that he honors his soul by praising her, and he is very ready to let her do whatever she may like. But I mean to say that in acting thus he only injures his soul, and does not honor her. — Laws, V, 727.
Hope. Mankind are filled with hopes in every stage of existence. — Philebus, 39.
Man still may hope, that when calamities supervene upon the blessings which God gives him, he will lighten them and change existing evils for the better; and as to the goods, he will not doubt that they will be ever present with him, and that he will be fortunate. — Laws, V, 732.
He who is conscious of no sin has in age a sweet hope which, as Pindar charmingly says, is a kind nurse to him. — Republic, I, 331.
Horse. The well-conditioned horse is erected and well-formed; he has a lofty neck and an aquiline nose, and his color is white, and he has dark eyes and is a lover of honor and modesty and temperance, and the follower of true glory; he needs not the touch of the whip, but is guided by word and admonition only. Whereas the other is a large misshapen animal, put together anyhow; he has a short strong neck; he is flat-faced and of dark color, gray-eyed and bloodshot, the mate of insolence and pride, shag-eared, deaf, hardly yielding to blow or spur. — Phaedrus, 253.
Horses are said to require attention, and not every person is able to attend to them, but only a person skilled in horsemanship. — Euthyphro, 13.
With a horse of better temper, vicious actions would be performed voluntarily, and with a horse of bad temper involuntarily. — Lesser Hippias, 375.
Did ever any man believe in horsemanship, and not in horses? — Apology, 27.
A horse is not useful to everybody, but only to those who know how to use a horse. — Eryxias, 403.
Horse Race. In the center of the two islands was a race course of a stadium in width, and in length allowed to extend all round the island, for horses to race in. — Critias, 117.
We give prizes for single horses — for colts who have not cast their teeth, and for those who are intermediate between the full-grown and the colts, and also for the full-grown horses themselves; and thus the horse races will accord with the nature of the country. — Laws, VIII, 834.
Hospitality. The stranger who comes from abroad should be received in a hospitable spirit. — Laws, XII, 952.
If a stranger is passing along the road, and desires to eat the autumnal fruit, let him, if he will, take of the fresh grape for himself and a single companion without price, as a tribute of national hospitality. — Laws, VIII, 845.
Hound. You are as keen as a Spartan hound in pursuing the track. — Parmenides, 128.
Household. A large household may be compared to a small state. — Statesman, 259.
The house in which order and regularity prevail is good. — Gorgias, 504.
House of Ill Fame. There is disgrace in sitting for hire in a house for ill fame. — Charmides, 163.
Human. Did ever man believe in the existence of human activities, and not of human beings? — Apology, 27.
Am I indeed a wonder more complicated and swollen with passion than the serpent Typho, or a human creature of a gentler and simpler sort, to whom nature has given a moral and intelligent destiny? — Phaedrus, 230.
Of human things we have not as yet spoken, and we must; for to men we are speaking and not to gods. — Laws, V, 732.
Let us grant, that humanity is not to be despised, but is worthy of some consideration. — Laws, VII, 804.
Human Nature. Cronos knew that no human nature invested with supreme power is able to order human affairs and not overflow with insolence and wrong. Which reflection led him to appoint not men but demi-gods, who are of a higher and more divine race, to be the rulers of our cities; he did as we do with flocks of sheep and other same animals. For we do not appoint oxen to be the masters of oxen, or goats of goats; but we ourselves are a superior race, and rule over them. Cities of which some mortal man and not God is the ruler, have no escape from evils and toils. — Laws, IV, 713.
The human gifts which are deemed by us to be essential rarely grow together; they are mostly found in shreds and patches. Quick intelligence, memory, sagacity, cleverness, and similar human qualities, do not often grow together, and persons who possess them and are at the same time high-spirited and magnanimous are not constituted by nature as to live orderly and in a peaceful and settled manner; they are driven any way by their impulses, and all solid principle goes out of them. On the other hand, those steadfast natures which can better be depended upon, which in a battle are impregnable to fear and immovable, are equally immovable when there is anything to be learned; they are always in a torpid state, and are apt to yawn and go to sleep over any intellectual toil. — Republic, VI, 503.
If I had been like other men, I should not have neglected all my own concerns, or patiently seen the neglect of them during all these years, and have been doing yours, coming to you individually, like a father or elder brother, exhorting you to regard virtue; this, I say, would not be like human nature. — Apology, 31.
Human Race. Every man should understand that the human race either had no beginning at all, and will never have an end, but always will be and has been; or had a beginning an immense time ago. — Laws, VI, 781.
Humors. The sharp and briny phlegm and other bitter and bilious humors wander over the body, and ... create infinite varieties of trouble and melancholy. — Timaeus, 87.
Hunger. If evil were to perish, should we hunger any more, or thirst any more, or have any similar affection? Or may we suppose that hunger will remain while men and animals remain, but not so as to be hurtful? — Lysis, 220.
Hunger may injure us, and may also benefit us. — Lysis, 221.
Must not they be utterly unfortunate whose souls are compelled to pass through life always hungering? — Laws, VIII, 832.
Hunger is a sort of disturbance. — Philebus, 31.
Hunting. Only the best kind of hunting is allowed at all — that of quadrupeds, which is carried on with horses and dogs and men’s own persons, and they get the victory over the animals by running them down and striking them and hurling at them, those who have a care of godlike manhood hunting them with their own hands. — Laws, VII, 824.
There remains for our athletes only hunting and catching of land animals, of which the one sort is called hunting by night, in which the hunters sleep in turn and are lazy; this is not to be commended any more than that which has intervals of rest, in which the wild strength of beasts is subdued by nets and snares, and not by the victory of a laborious spirit. — Laws, VII, 824.
Huntsman. I was satisfied like a huntsman whose prey is within his grasp. — Lysis, 218.
Hydra. Even Heracles could not fight against the Hydra, who was a she-Sophist, and had the wit to shoot up many new heads when one of them was cut off. — Euthydemus, 297.
Hymn. Hymns to the gods and praises of famous men are the only poetry which ought to be admitted in our state. For if you go beyond this and allow the honeyed muse to enter, not law and reason, but pleasure and pain will be the rulers in our state. — Republic, X, 607.
Hypocrite. Hypocrites praise one thing, but are pleased at another. — Laws, II, 655.
Hypothesis. I think that you should consider not only the consequences which flow from a given hypothesis; but also the consequences which flow from denying the hypothesis. — Parmenides, 135.
“I wish to assume it as possible before I tell you whether this triangle is capable of being included in this circle”: this is a geometrical hypothesis. — Meno, 87.