"No one ever teaches well who wants to teach, or governs well who wants to govern"
About this Quote
Plato’s line cuts like an insult disguised as advice: the people most eager for the badge are often the least fit to wear it. The barb is in the repetition. “Wants to teach” and “wants to govern” aren’t neutral ambitions; they’re cravings for status, control, and a captive audience. Plato is warning that desire, when aimed at the role itself, warps the work. A teacher who wants to teach may really want applause, obedience, or the comfort of being right. A ruler who wants to govern may want the machinery of power more than the burden of judgment.
The subtext is classic Platonic suspicion of appetite. In the Republic, the city collapses when lower desires steer the ship; philosophy is the attempt to make reason pilot instead. So the best teacher or governor is the one pulled by duty, not hunger. That’s why Plato’s ideal ruler is the philosopher-king: someone who would rather be doing something else (contemplating truth) but accepts leadership as a reluctant obligation.
Context matters: Plato wrote after watching Athenian democracy swing from imperial confidence to catastrophe, and after seeing his teacher Socrates executed by the city’s own institutions. The line reads like trauma turned into political theory. It’s not anti-politics so much as anti-careerism: a critique of people who chase authority as identity. The paradox lands because it’s still recognizable: ambition doesn’t just motivate public service; it can quietly poison it.
The subtext is classic Platonic suspicion of appetite. In the Republic, the city collapses when lower desires steer the ship; philosophy is the attempt to make reason pilot instead. So the best teacher or governor is the one pulled by duty, not hunger. That’s why Plato’s ideal ruler is the philosopher-king: someone who would rather be doing something else (contemplating truth) but accepts leadership as a reluctant obligation.
Context matters: Plato wrote after watching Athenian democracy swing from imperial confidence to catastrophe, and after seeing his teacher Socrates executed by the city’s own institutions. The line reads like trauma turned into political theory. It’s not anti-politics so much as anti-careerism: a critique of people who chase authority as identity. The paradox lands because it’s still recognizable: ambition doesn’t just motivate public service; it can quietly poison it.
Quote Details
| Topic | Teaching |
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