Philosophers have looked into the methods of reaching a high quality of life and felicity with the idea of soul healers acting as aspiritual doctor; an idea which runs through the whole length of the history of Western philosophy, with its primary emphasis laid on mind cultivation. The present article aims at highlighting the similarities and differences between the education models of Plato and Nietzsche by scrutinizing them in a comparative analysis. The former has admittedly exercised an enormous influence on the human intellectual history, and the latter is diagonally opposed to it in a dynamic tension.

  The Platonic model of Mind cultivation has been examined on the basis of the Speech of Diotima in Plato’sSymposium and the three allegories contained in the sixth and seventh books of Politeia, i.e. allegory of the sun, allegory of the line, and the allegory of the cave.

  For the examination of Nietzsche’s model of mind cultivation, relevant analyses were made on the wandering of the free spirit and the process of self-overcoming of the spirit as demonstrated in Zarathustra’s Prologue in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. What both models have in common in principle is the recognition of a deep spiritual drive in the search for truth. However, they show differences with reference to their respective approaches to truth, path and aims of education, and attitudes towards life after the enlightenment. Both thinkers share the view that carnal sensuality and desire is in fact a natural spiritual drive which strives for beauty and harmony. The one ascribes the failure of the drive to achieve its sublimation to the primitiveness of its object, while the other thinks that the tender and sensitive tree called human being can only attain its height in proportion to the depth of its roots. And this fundamental difference of approaches leads to the difference of the educational models of the two thinkers. Notwithstanding the differences, each model has its logical vein along the lines of its own concept of truth. Once the epistemological and ethical pre-decision hasbeen made, either model will prove functional as a significant model depending on the need at hand.