Q0380

Plato

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

The beginning is the most important part of any work.
Thinker Plato
School Platonism
Source Republic II (education); popular form of beginning maxim
Theme Philosophy
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with Republic II (education); popular form of beginning maxim, 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.). The beginning is the most important part of any work. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0380

MLA: Plato. “The beginning is the most important part of….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0380.

Chicago: Plato. “The beginning is the most important part of….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0380.

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