Not Plato — an unsourced modern paraphraseWilliam Shakespeare (literary root)English playwright & poet, 1564–1616 · the exact “faith” wording is undated & anonymous
The line appears in no dialogue or letter of Plato and is missing from Wikiquote’s curated Plato page. Its memorable “armed by a just cause” idea traces to Shakespeare’s ‘Henry VI, Part 2’ — “Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just” — while the specific “twice armed…with faith” phrasing is an anonymous modern rewording later pinned on Plato.
“We are twice armed if we fight with faith” Misattributed to Plato. The line appears in none of Plato's works; it is an unsourced modern paraphrase echoing Shakespeare's "Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just" (Henry VI, Part 2, c. 1591). — Quotle.info
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Provenance
Where it actually comes from
Popularly credited to
Plato (428/427–348/347 BCE)
Actually
No source in Plato; echoes Shakespeare
Literary root
Henry VI, Part 2 (c. 1591)
Status
Disputed — unsourced modern paraphrase
What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted? / Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just, / And he but naked, though locked up in steel, / Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.
↑ the likely literary root — Shakespeare, not Plato; note it says “thrice” and “quarrel just,” not “twice” and “faith”
The popular “We are twice armed if we fight with faith” is a loose modern paraphrase of this sentiment. No comparable line exists anywhere in Plato’s dialogues, and the framing of ‘faith’ as a martial virtue is foreign to his vocabulary of ‘aretē’ (excellence) and ‘pistis’ (mere belief/opinion).
The exact modern wording has no identified author or date, so its rights status is indeterminate; the underlying Shakespeare passage it echoes (c. 1591) is firmly in the public domain.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
The attribution problem
The line is one of thousands of uplifting one-liners assigned to Plato by quote sites without a supporting text. It is not a translation of anything in the Platonic corpus.
The appeal is obvious: a compact promise that conviction multiplies strength. That timeless-sounding cadence is exactly what makes it easy to bolt onto a famous ancient name — and Plato, as shorthand for ‘wise Greek philosopher,’ is a magnet for orphaned aphorisms.
But the specific machinery of the line — being ‘armed’ extra times by the righteousness of one’s cause — is a distinctly English, Shakespearean image, later softened from ‘a just quarrel’ into the gentler, more devotional ‘faith.’
Plato talked of excellence and knowledge; the ‘twice-armed by faith’ image is Shakespeare’s, reworded.
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Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
William Shakespeare gave the ‘armed by a just cause’ image its enduring form in Henry VI, Part 2 (c. 1591), where King Henry says “Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just.” The modern “twice armed…with faith” line is a later, anonymous softening of that thought — not Shakespeare’s exact words, and certainly not Plato’s.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Closest literary parallel
William Shakespeare, ‘Henry VI, Part 2’ (c. 1591), Act 3, Scene 2: “Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just.” No source for the “twice armed…with faith” wording exists in Plato.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘We are twice armed if we fight with faith’?” Last verified 7 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/we-are-twice-armed-if-we-fight-with-faith/