Plutarch Quotes
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We ought to give our friend pain if it will benefit him, but not to the extent of breaking off our friendship; but just as we make use of some biting medicine that will save and preserve the life of the patient. And so the friend, like a musician, in bringing about an improvement to what is good and expedient, sometimes slackens the chords, sometimes tightens them, and is often pleasant, but always useful.
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Memory: what wonders it performs in preserving and storing up things gone by - or rather, things that are.
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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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Know how to listen, and you will profit even from those who talk badly.
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For to err in opinion, though it be not the part of wise men, is at least human.
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Cato requested old men not to add the disgrace of wickedness to old age, which was accompanied with many other evils.
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They fought indeed and were slain, but it was to maintain the luxury and the wealth of other men.
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I confess myself the greatest coward in the world, for I dare not do an ill thing.
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Like watermen, who look astern while they row the boat ahead.
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Talkativeness has another plague attached to it, even curiosity; for praters wish to hear much that they may have much to say.
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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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Rome was in the most dangerous inclination to change on account of the unequal distribution of wealth and property, those of highest rank and greatest spirit having impoverished themselves by shows, entertainments, ambition of offices, and sumptuous buildings, and the riches of the city having thus fallen into the hands of mean and low-born persons. So that there wanted but a slight impetus to set all in motion, it being in the power of every daring man to overturn a sickly commonwealth.
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Medicine to produce health must examine disease; and music, to create harmony must investigate discord.
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Eat not thy heart; which forbids to afflict our souls, and waste them with vexatious cares.
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Nor is drunkenness censured for anything so much as its intemperate and endless talk.
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'T is a wise saying, Drive on your own track.
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He said that in his whole life he most repented of three things: one was that he had trusted a secret to a woman; another, that he went by water when he might have gone by land; the third, that he had remained one whole day without doing any business of moment.
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I am whatever was, or is, or will be; and my veil no mortal ever took up.
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Plato used to say to Xenocrates the philosopher, who was rough and morose, "Good Xenocrates, sacrifice to the Graces.
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I had rather men should ask why my statue is not set up, than why it is.
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Books delight to the very marrow of one's bones. They speak to us, consult with us, and join with us in a living and intense intimacy.
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Using the proverb frequently in their mouths who enter upon dangerous and bold attempts, 'The die is cast,' he took the river.
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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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For the rich men without scruple drew the estate into their own hands, excluding the rightful heirs from their succession; and all the wealth being centred upon the few, the generality were poor and miserable. Honourable pursuits, for which there was no longer leisure, were neglected; the state was filled with sordid business, and with hatred and envy of the rich.