Plutarch Quotes
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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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When the candles are out all women are fair.
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Know how to listen, and you will profit even from those who talk badly.
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When Demosthenes was asked what were the three most important aspects of oratory, he answered, 'Action, Action, Action.'
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To find fault is easy; to do better may be difficult.
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When Demaratus was asked whether he held his tongue because he was a fool or for want of words, he replied, 'A fool cannot hold his tongue.'
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He who reflects on another man's want of breeding, shows he wants it as much himself.
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Pythias once, scoffing at Demosthenes, said that his arguments smelt of the lamp.
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The measure of a man is the way he bears up under misfortune.
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'T is a wise saying, Drive on your own track.
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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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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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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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Euripides was wont to say, 'Silence is an answer to a wise man.'
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Demosthenes, when taunted by Pytheas that all his arguments "smelled of the lamp," replied, "Yes, but your lamp and mine, my friend, do not witness the same labours.
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Thus they let their anger and fury take from them the sense of humanity, and demonstrated that no beast is more savage than man when possessed with power answerable to his rage.
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The whole life of man is but a point of time; let us enjoy it.
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When asked why he parted with his wife, Cæsar replied, 'I wished my wife to be not so much as suspected.'
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Vultures are the most righteous of birds: they do not attack even the smallest living creature.
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νήπιος, ὃς τὰ ἕτοιμα λιπὼν ἀνέτοιμα διώκει
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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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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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Courage and wisdom are, indeed, rarities amongst men, but of all that is good, a just man it would seem is the most scarce.
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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.