Q0006

Plato

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

Love is the desire for the perpetual possession of the good.
Thinker Plato
School Platonism
Source Symposium 206a
Theme Love
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Symposium 206a, within the tradition of Platonism. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of love, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Plato's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Plato. (n.d.). Love is the desire for the perpetual possession of the good. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0006

MLA: Plato. “Love is the desire for the perpetual possession….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0006.

Chicago: Plato. “Love is the desire for the perpetual possession….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0006.

Same thinker

More from Plato

  1. Justice is doing one's own work and not meddling in others'.
  2. Let us not become haters of argument — that is a great danger to the soul.
  3. Extreme freedom seems to change into nothing but extreme slavery.
  4. Picture human beings as if living in an underground, cave-like dwelling.
  5. First, it always is, and neither comes to be nor perishes.

All quotations by Plato

Same theme

More on love

  1. A friend is another self.
  2. If you wish to be loved, love.
  3. Late have I loved you, beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved you!
  4. Compassion is the basis of morality.
  5. Mencius said: Those who love others are constantly loved by others; those who respect others are constantly respected by others.

Browse the love theme