Quotation
Last reviewed:
“Imitations, if continued from youth far into life, settle down into habits and nature, in body, speech, and thought.”
Plato · Platonism · Ancient · c. 375 BCE
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is that repeated imitation settles into character, in body, speech, and thought, so what the young copy is already an education. A competing reading accepts the psychology and rejects the censorship Plato builds on it, treating art as riskier than he allows but not as something the city must script. The line sits in Republic III, in the argument about which stories and which musical modes the guardians may meet. Aristotle's ethics of habit is downstream of it.
Did Plato really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. A standard rendering of Socrates' warning about what young guardians should imitate. It is Plato's Greek, translated.
Where it comes from
Plato, Republic 395d
Approximate date: c. 375 BCE.
How to use it
The voices copied for a laugh in a group chat, the clips rewatched on the bus, the tone used with a waiter: that is practice, whether or not anyone calls it practice. A fortnight of the same impression is already a small settlement in the way you speak. Style is not only costume.
A mindset reading
Character is not only the list of things you believe. It is what has become easy to do without a fresh decision. The habit of thought is to treat repetition as training, including the repetition you call entertainment.
Understand the philosophy
Plato is answering why poetry matters in a city that wants brave, moderate guardians. Mimesis, imitation, is his key term: taking on a voice or a gesture until it is yours. He thinks this shapes desire before argument can. You can refuse his ban on poets and still keep the claim about habit.
- virtue
- self
- change
FAQ
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is that repeated imitation settles into character, in body, speech, and thought, so what the young copy is already an education. A competing reading accepts the psychology and rejects the censorship Plato builds on it, treating art as riskier than he allows but not as something the city must script. The line sits in Republic III, in the argument about which stories and which musical modes the guardians may meet. Aristotle's ethics of habit is downstream of it.
Did Plato really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. A standard rendering of Socrates' warning about what young guardians should imitate. It is Plato's Greek, translated.
Which work is it in?
Plato, Republic 395d Approximate date: c. 375 BCE.