The Republic by Plato Quotes
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And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened:—Behold! human beings living in an underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.
I see.
And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent.
You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners.
Like ourselves, I replied; and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave?
Context
You're looking at the opening lines of what is probably Plato's most well-known thought experiment.
He's beginning to describe a scene in which people only see the shadows of things and have no idea what the things themselves actually look like. These shadows are reflected by the fire and the sun onto the wall of the cave, and the prisoners (who have been in the cave from birth and have no other experience) think these shadows are the primary things of the world. So when people pass by, they think "people" are the dark shapes and that the wall on which they are projected is the entirety of the "world."
Of course, the question is: what happens to these people when they are unchained?
Surely, argues Socrates, these people will be confused and will, given a choice, continue to view the shadows as the essence of things, and to view their new experiences—of actually looking at the people and the objects as they pass by the cave—as some secondary entity.
Now, you might be thinking, "when do these people get a chance to pee?" Well, if we ever wanted to run this experiment for real (which…please don't), we might have to worry about that. But that's not the point (surprise!).
The point? We are the people in the cave. Everything we see with our eyes is just a projection of its real essence. Our brain has created a mental picture of something which exists in the physical world, but what we see is the mental image, not the object itself.
We are living in a land of shadows.
Oof.
Where you've heard it
The Allegory of the Cave is about as famous as you can get when it comes to philosophy.
You've probably studied it in school and heard it from lots of your emo friends.
Pretentious Factor
If you were to drop this quote at a dinner party, would you get an in-unison "awww" or would everyone roll their eyes and never invite you back? Here it is, on a scale of 1-10.
There's a difference between talking about something and actually quoting it. Everyone knows about the Allegory of the Cave, but who actually takes the time to learn it verbatim, especially with all the weird dialogism stuff Plato was doing?