Date: 380-360 B.C.

The soul of a man who is unjust but has a reputation of being just is an image of a mixed monster: "the Chimaera, Scylla, Cerberus, and certain others, a throng of them, which are said to have been may ideas grown naturally together in one."

— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)

Date: c. 370-365 B.C.

"Let the soul be compared to a pair of winged horses and charioteer joined in natural union."

— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)

Date: c. 370-365 B.C.

"The reason why the souls exhibit this exceeding eagerness to behold the Plain of Truth is that pasturage is found there, which is suited to the highest part of the soul; and the wing on which the soul soars is nourished with this."

— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)

Date: c. 370-365 B.C.

"During this process the whole soul is all in a state of ebullition and effervescence,--which may be compared to the irritation and uneasiness in the gums at the time of cutting teeth,--bubbles up, and has a feeling of uneasiness and tickling; but when in like manner the soul is beginning to grow...

— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)

Date: c. 370-365 B.C.

"At the beginning of this tale, I divided each soul into three parts--two having the form of horses and the third being like a charioteer; the division may remain."

— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)

Date: c. 370-365 B.C.

"And when this feeling continues and he is nearer to him and embraces him, in gymnastic exercises and at other times of meeting, then the fountain of that stream, which Zeus when he was in love with Ganymede named Desire, overflows upon the lover, and some enters into his soul, and some when he i...

— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)

Date: c. 370-365 B.C.

"And of madness there were two kinds; one produced by human infirmity, the other was a divine release of the soul from the yoke of custom and convention."

— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)

Date: 360-355 B.C.

"Now consider whether knowledge is a thing you can possess in that way without having it about you, like a man who has caught some wild birds--pigeons or what not--and keeps them in an aviary he has made for them at home."

— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)

Date: 360-355 B.C.

While having knowledge may be analogous to a man who "has" birds in an aviary, "in another sense he 'has' none of them, though he has got control of them, now that he has made them captive in an enclosure of his own; he can take and have hold of them whenever he likes by catching any bird he choo...

— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)

Date: 360-355 B.C.

"Once more then, just as a while ago we imagined a sort of waxen block in our minds, so now let us suppose that every mind contains a kind of aviary stocked with birds of every sort, some in flocks apart from the rest, some in small groups, and some solitary, flying in any direction among them all."

— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)