Date: c. 390 B.C.

"And if the soul too, my dear Alcibiades, is to know herself, she must surely look at a soul [like an eye looking into the pupil of another eye], and especially at that region of it in which occurs the virtue of a soul--wisdom, and at any other part of a soul which resembles this?"

— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)

Date: c. 387 B.C.

"[T]hat as you ought not to attempt to cure the eyes without the head, or the head without the body, so neither ought you attempt to cure the body without the soul."

— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)

Date: 387 B.C.?

"But what is it that nourishes the soul?"

— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)

Date: 380-360 B.C.

"And purification, as we saw some time ago in our discussion, consists in separating the soul as much as possible from the body, and accustoming it to withdraw from all contact with the body and concentrate itself by itself, and to have its dwelling, so far as it can, both now and in the future, ...

— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)

Date: 380-360 B.C.

"The rest of your statement, Socrates, he said, seems excellent to me, but what you said about the soul leaves the average person with grave misgivings that when it is released from the body it may no longer exist anywhere, but may be dispersed and destroyed on the very day that the man himself d...

— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)

Date: 380-360 B.C.

"Every seeker after wisdom knows that up to the time when philosophy takes it over his soul is a helpless prisoner, chained hand and foot in the body, compelled to view reality not directly but only through its prison bars, and wallowing in utter ignorance."

— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)

Date: 380-360 B.C.

"The result of agreeing with the body and finding pleasure in the same things is, I imagine, that [the soul] cannot help becoming like it in character and training, so that it can never get entirely away to the unseen world, but it is always saturated with the body when it sets out, and so soon f...

— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)

Date: 380-360 B.C.

"I was afraid that by observing objects with my eyes and trying to comprehend them with each of my senses I might blind my soul altogether."

— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)

Date: 380-360 B.C.

"[T]here is in every soul an organ or instrument of knowledge that is purified and kindled afresh by such studies when it has been destroyed and blinded by our ordinary pursuits, a faculty whose preservation outweighs ten thousand eyes, for by it only is reality beheld."

— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)

Date: 370-300 B.C.

"So too when you state the next point in your argument, that those who train their bodies but neglect their souls are guilty of another action of the same sort--neglecting the part that should rule, and attending to that which should be ruled."

— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)