Plato, Cratylus, section 439a

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[439a]

Socrates
Stop for Heaven's sake! Did we not more than once agree that names which are rightly given are like the things named and are images of them?

Cratylus
Yes.

Socrates
Then if it be really true that things can be learned either through names or through themselves which would be the better and surer way of learning? To learn from the image whether it is itself a good imitation and also to learn the truth which it imitates,

Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 12 translated by Harold N. Fowler. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921.

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