Plutarch Quotes
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Not by lamentations and mournful chants ought we to celebrate the funeral of a good man, but by hymns; for, ion ceasing to be numbered with mortals, he enters upon the heritage of a diviner life. Since he is gone where he feels no pain, let us not indulge in too much grief. The soul is incapable of death. And he, like a bird not long enough in his cage to become attached to it, is free to fly away to a purer air. . . . Since we cherish a trust like this, let our outward actions be in accord with it, and let us keep our hearts pure and our minds calm.
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As Athenodorus was taking his leave of Cæsar, 'Remember,' said he, 'Cæsar, whenever you are angry, to say or do nothing before you have repeated the four-and-twenty letters to yourself.'
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Lamentation is the only musician that always, like a screech-owl, alights and sits on the roof of any angry man.
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We ought not to treat living creatures like shoes or household belongings, which when worn with use we throw away.
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So very difficult a matter is it to trace and find out the truth of anything by history.
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It is no disgrace not to be able to do everything; but to undertake, or pretend to do, what you are not made for, is not only shameful, but extremely troublesome and vexatious.
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Nature and wisdom never are at strife.
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The saying of old Antigonus, who when he was to fight at Andros, and one told him, 'The enemy's ships are more than ours,' replied, 'For how many then wilt thou reckon me?'
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Fortune had favoured me in this war that I feared, the rather, that some tempest would follow so favourable a gale.
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When the candles are out all women are fair.
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As in the case of painters, who have undertaken to give us a beautiful and graceful figure, which may have some slight blemishes, we do not wish then to pass over such blemishes altogether, nor yet to mark them too prominently. The one would spoil the beauty, and the other destroy the likeness of the picture.
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Euripides was wont to say, 'Silence is an answer to a wise man.'
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When he was in great prosperity, and courted by many, seeing himself splendidly served at his table, he turned to his children and said: 'Children, we had been undone, if we had not been undone'.
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Learn to be pleased with everything, with wealth so far as it makes us beneficial to others; with poverty, for not having much to care for; and with obscurity, for being unenvied.
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When he was wounded with an arrow in the ankle, and many ran to him that were wont to call him a god, he said smiling, 'That is blood, as you see, and not, as Homer saith, ‘such humour as distils from blessed gods.''
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Demosthenes overcame and rendered more distinct his inarticulate and stammering pronunciation by speaking with pebbles in his mouth.
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A Roman divorced from his wife, being highly blamed by his friends, who demanded, 'Was she not chaste? Was she not fair? Was she not fruitful?' holding out his shoe, asked them whether it was not new and well made. 'Yet,' added he, 'none of you can tell where it pinches me.'
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If we traverse the world, it is possible to find cities without walls, without letters, without kings, without wealth, without coin, without schools and theatres; but a city without a temple, or that practiseth not worship, prayer, and the like, no one ever saw.
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Silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech.
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When Eudæmonidas heard a philosopher arguing that only a wise man can be a good general, 'This is a wonderful speech,' said he; 'but he that saith it never heard the sound of trumpets.'
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The man who first brought ruin upon the Roman people was he who pampered them by largesses and amusements.
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In words are seen the state of mind and character and disposition of the speaker.
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The crowns of kings do not prevent those who wear them from being tormented sometimes by violent headaches.
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Let a prince be guarded with soldiers, attended by councillors, and shut up in forts; yet if his thoughts disturb him, he is miserable.