Q0320

Plato

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

This feeling—wonder—belongs especially to the philosopher; philosophy has no other beginning than this.
Thinker Plato
School Platonism
Source Theaetetus 155d
Theme Philosophy
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Theaetetus 155d, 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 philosophy, 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.). This feeling—wonder—belongs especially to the philosopher; philosophy has no other beginning than this. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0320

MLA: Plato. “This feeling—wonder—belongs especially to the philosopher; philosophy has….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0320.

Chicago: Plato. “This feeling—wonder—belongs especially to the philosopher; philosophy has….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0320.

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 philosophy

  1. It is through wonder that people both now begin and first began to philosophize.
  2. A person's character is their destiny.
  3. What is opposed brings together; from what differs comes the finest harmony.
  4. Death is nothing to us: for what has been dissolved has no sensation, and what has no sensation is nothing to us.
  5. Pleasure is the beginning and end of the happy life — not the pleasures of profligates, but freedom from pain in the body and from disturbance in the soul.

Browse the philosophy theme