|

Death is not the worst thing - Plato explained

Plato was the student of Socrates and is responsible for all almost all transcripts of Socrates' thought. He wrote down most of the approaches in dialogues, but Plato also had some very valuable ideas of his own. In this article, we take a closer look at one of his quotes.

"Death is not the worst thing that can happen to man."

Plato

How could this be meant? After all, death is the final instance of life and everything that happens afterwards is uncertain. So how can this all-ending omnipresent existence of death not be the worst thing for a human being? How can there be anything worse than the end?

Plato believed that death is not something to be afraid of or to fear. After all, what death brings is uncertain. Will we simply fall into a sleep without dreaming or will our soul be taken to another place where our journey continues? There is no answer to these questions, which makes it very difficult to give death any value.

However, one can give a valence to events before his death very simply. That is, if we can orient ourselves by our moral ideas or we determine whether an act is good or bad. We cannot do this at death.

Thus Plato wrote in a dialogue of Socrates that it is better to die for one's country in war than to run away. For whoever ran away in war and left the women and children of the country without protection would meet a fate worse than death.

But Plato also believed that besides running away in war, there are similar reprehensible fates that are worse than death.

In my opinion it is also a worse fate to have never really lived than to die. Not if you don't manage to shape your life according to your ideas, but if you don't even try to live a life that is worth living. This does not mean to always do what you feel like doing - often you have to do things you don't feel like doing at all - but to live in such a way that the lives of others and of yourself have the best possible result.

https://www.pinterest.de/pin/1045890713435607922/
Oh, how many good quotes I never found again. So that this does not happen to you: just pin đź™‚

Did you like this article? You can let us inform you about new articles:


Similar Posts

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *