"I would fain grow old learning many things"
About this Quote
Aging, for Plato, isn’t a slow surrender of the body; it’s a last, best chance to tighten the mind’s grip on what matters. “I would fain” carries a willed preference, almost a plea: not that he expects old age to be easy, but that he wants it to be purposeful. The line sneaks in a rebuke to the common cultural script where youth hoards ambition and later life settles for comfort. Plato flips that. If desire is going to persist, let it attach to learning rather than appetite, status, or spectacle.
The subtext is profoundly Platonic: knowledge isn’t mere accumulation of facts but a moral and metaphysical training. Learning “many things” sounds broad and humane, yet it implies a ladder. For Plato, the point of variety is not trivia; it’s refinement. You move from the messy multiplicity of experience toward clearer judgment, toward the kind of wisdom that can govern a life. Old age becomes an argument for philosophy’s practicality: if the mind can still turn toward truth when the body can’t sprint, then the highest pursuits were never dependent on youth’s advantages.
Context matters, too. Plato writes in the long shadow of Athens’ political volatility and Socrates’ execution, where “knowing” and “living well” weren’t separable. To grow old learning is also to survive disillusionment without becoming cynical: to keep the soul elastic, curious, and resistant to the petrifying certainties that so often pass for maturity.
The subtext is profoundly Platonic: knowledge isn’t mere accumulation of facts but a moral and metaphysical training. Learning “many things” sounds broad and humane, yet it implies a ladder. For Plato, the point of variety is not trivia; it’s refinement. You move from the messy multiplicity of experience toward clearer judgment, toward the kind of wisdom that can govern a life. Old age becomes an argument for philosophy’s practicality: if the mind can still turn toward truth when the body can’t sprint, then the highest pursuits were never dependent on youth’s advantages.
Context matters, too. Plato writes in the long shadow of Athens’ political volatility and Socrates’ execution, where “knowing” and “living well” weren’t separable. To grow old learning is also to survive disillusionment without becoming cynical: to keep the soul elastic, curious, and resistant to the petrifying certainties that so often pass for maturity.
Quote Details
| Topic | Learning |
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