He quotes Popeye and Plato with equal ease.

He never earned a high-school diploma, but in later years he liked to quote Plato and Kipling.

- Don't quote Plato to me, my father said, as if he were some philosopher.

General MacArthur, quoting Plato, said: "Only the dead have seen the end of war."

But what that picture was leading me to ask was something he had quoted Plato as asking - whether it had all been worthwhile, his whole life?

And I can quote Homer and Plato if you want.

"I wanted to quote Plato but couldn't work it in."

He quotes Plato to the effect that everything in the world has a perfect example on which it is modeled, then adds: "That's me.

To quote Plato: 'It is for us to follow the upward path and avoid the downward path'.

"I usually quote Plato, who said: It is very dangerous to allow the wrong kind of music in the republic."