Q0222

Plato

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

First, it always is, and neither comes to be nor perishes.
Thinker Plato
School Platonism
Source Symposium 211b
Theme Beauty
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Symposium 211b, 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 beauty, 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.). First, it always is, and neither comes to be nor perishes. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0222

MLA: Plato. “First, it always is, and neither comes to….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0222.

Chicago: Plato. “First, it always is, and neither comes to….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0222.

Same thinker

More from Plato

  1. Justice is doing one's own work and not meddling in others'.
  2. Love is the desire for the perpetual possession of the good.
  3. Let us not become haters of argument — that is a great danger to the soul.
  4. Extreme freedom seems to change into nothing but extreme slavery.
  5. Picture human beings as if living in an underground, cave-like dwelling.

All quotations by Plato

Same theme

More on beauty

  1. You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.
  2. Late have I loved you, beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved you!
  3. The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know.
  4. Withdraw into yourself and look.
  5. The sublime is what is absolutely great.

Browse the beauty theme