Book: Feast

<...> Do you know that a correct, but not supported by arguments, idea of something cannot be called knowledge? If there is no explanation, what is this knowledge? But this is not ignorance either. If it corresponds to what it really is, what kind of ignorance is that? Apparently, the correct idea is something between understanding and ignorance.

And everyone whom he cut, Apollo, by order of Zeus, had to turn his face and half of his neck towards the cut, so that, looking at his injury, the person became more modest, and everything else was ordered to heal. And Apollo turned his faces and, pulling the skin from everywhere, like a bag is pulled together, to one place, now called the belly, he tied the hole in the middle of the belly - it is now called the navel. Having smoothed out the folds and giving the chest a clear outline - for this he was a tool like the one used by shoemakers to smooth out the folds of skin on a block - Apollo left a few wrinkles near the navel and on his stomach, as a memory of his previous state. And when the bodies were cut in half in this way, each half lustfully rushed to its other half, they hugged, intertwined and, passionately wanting to grow together, died of hunger and in general from inaction, because they did not want to do anything separately. And if one half died, the survivor would seek out any other half for herself and intertwine with it, regardless of whether she came across half of the former woman, that is, what we now call a woman, or the former man. And so they died. Here Zeus, taking pity on them, invents another device: he rearranges their shameful parts forward, which before they were turned in the same direction as their face before, so that they poured the seed not into each other, but into the ground, like cicadas. He moved their shameful parts, thereby establishing the fertilization of women by men, so that when a man copulates with a woman, children are born and the race continues, and when a man gets together with a man, satisfaction from intercourse is still achieved, after which they could rest, take for business and take care of your other needs. This is how long ago people have been in love with each other, which, by combining the previous halves, tries to make one of the two and thereby heal human nature.

Because all geniuses are a cross between a God and a mortal.

"I will," said Agathon, not to argue with you, Socrates. Have it your way.
- No, my dear Agathon, you can't argue with the truth, and to argue with Socrates is simple enough.

- Of the gods, no one does philosophy and does not want to become wise as the gods are already wise; and indeed the sage of wisdom does not seek. But don't do philosophy and do not want to become wise again, and ignorant. After all, that's the ugly ignorance that man is not perfect and not perfect, and not intelligent quite pleased with themselves. And who doesn't believe that needs something, and he does not want what, in his opinion, do not feel the need.
So who Diotima, - I asked - seeks wisdom, as long as neither the wise nor the ignorant philosophy not to do?
- Clear, and the child, - she answered, - what do it those who find themselves in the middle between the sages and the ignorant.

Low that vulgar fan who loves the body more than the soul; he was also fickle, fickle as what he loves. One has only to wither the body, and the body he loved, how he will "fly away, flying", poromiv all their wordy promises.

The gods forgive the violation of the oath only lover.