Daily Inspiration Quote by Plato

Plato isn’t gloomily celebrating evil here; he’s laying down a structural claim about moral life. “Must always remain” has the chill of metaphysics, not melodrama: goodness, in his view, doesn’t get to be a self-sustaining paradise that permanently retires conflict. The line works because it refuses the comforting fantasy that virtue is a final destination. For Plato, “good” isn’t just a label for decent behavior; it’s an ideal standard (the Form of the Good) against which the messy world is measured. Once you posit a shining measure, you also guarantee resistance: ignorance, appetite, and misaligned desire become the built-in antagonists that make moral striving necessary.

The subtext is almost political. Plato is writing in the aftermath of Athens’ volatility, factionalism, and the execution of Socrates, with firsthand evidence that a city can talk itself into injustice while believing it’s being righteous. “Antagonistic to good” can be read as the perpetual presence of forces that counterfeit the good - persuasion without truth, power without wisdom, pleasure without order. In The Republic, this antagonism shows up inside the person as well: reason’s project of harmony is constantly pressured by spirit and appetite, so virtue is less a serene state than an ongoing governance problem.

The intent, then, is bracing: if you expect the good to arrive and stay, you’re already vulnerable to demagogues and self-deception. Plato’s realism is that the fight isn’t an interruption of ethics; it’s the condition that makes ethics visible.