Date: c. 387 B.C.

"And by the sieve, my informant told me, he means the soul, and the soul of the foolish he compared to a sieve, because it is perforated through lack of belief and forgetfulness is unable to hold anything."

— 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.

"So this journey which is now ordained for me carries a happy prospect for any other man also who believes that his mind has been prepared by purification."

— 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.

"When soul and body are both in the same place, nature teaches the one to serve and be subject, the other to rule and govern."

— 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.

"Because every pleasure or pain has a sort of rivet with which it fastens the soul to the body and pins it down and makes it corporeal, accepting as true whatever the body certifies."

— 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.

"But while we may admit that each soul wears out a number of bodies, especially if it lives a great many of years--because although the body is continually changing and disintegrating all through life, the soul never stops replacing what it worn away--still we must suppose that when the soul dies...

— Plato (427 BC - 347 BC)