"the part that they're trying to fill is like a vessel full of holes, and neither it nor the things they are trying to fill it with are among the things that are"

"those who have no experience of reason or virtue, but are always occupied with feasts and the like, are brought down and then back up to the middle, as it seems, and wander in this way throughout their lives, never reaching beyond this to what is truly higher up, never looking up at it or being brought up to it, and so they aren't filled with that which really is and never taste any stable or pure pleasure.  Instead, they always look down at the ground like cattle, and, with their heads bent over the dinner table, they feed, fatten, and fornicate.  To outdo others in these things, they kick and butt them with iron horns and hooves, killing each other, because their desires are insatiable.  For the part that they're trying to fill is like a vessel full of holes, and neither it nor the things they are trying to fill it with are among the things that are [(ἅτε οὐχὶ τοῖς οὖσιν οὐδὲ τὸ ὂν οὐδὲ τὸ στέγον ἑαυτῶν πιμπλάντες; an initial stab:  as if filling with things that don't exist neither the existing nor the leak-proof [part] of themselves]."

     Plato, Republic 9, 585d-586b, trans. Grube & Reeve.