Plutarch Quotes
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Pythias once, scoffing at Demosthenes, said that his arguments smelt of the lamp.
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When a man's struggle begins within oneself, the man is worth something.
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He that first started that doctrine, that knavery is the best defense against a knave, was but an ill teacher, advising us to commit wickedness to secure ourselves.
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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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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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For to err in opinion, though it be not the part of wise men, is at least human.
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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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Alexander wept when he heard from Anaxarchus that there was an infinite number of worlds; and his friends asking him if any accident had befallen him, he returns this answer: 'Do you not think it a matter worthy of lamentation that when there is such a vast multitude of them, we have not yet conquered one?'
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Statesmen are not only liable to give an account of what they say or do in public, but there is a busy inquiry made into their very meals, beds, marriages, and every other sportive or serious action.
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Cæsar said to the soothsayer, 'The ides of March are come;' who answered him calmly, 'Yes, they are come, but they are not past.'
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Said Periander, 'Hesiod might as well have kept his breath to cool his pottage.'
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Silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech.
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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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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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Plato used to say to Xenocrates the philosopher, who was rough and morose, "Good Xenocrates, sacrifice to the Graces.
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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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I confess myself the greatest coward in the world, for I dare not do an ill thing.
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Like the man who threw a stone at a bitch, but hit his step-mother, on which he exclaimed, 'Not so bad!'
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Sometimes small incidents, rather than glorious exploits, give us the best evidence of character. So, as portrait painters are more exact in doing the face, where the character is revealed, than the rest of the body, I must be allowed to give my more particular attention to the marks of the souls of men.
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Come back with your shield - or on it.
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Nor is drunkenness censured for anything so much as its intemperate and endless talk.
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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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Epaminondas is reported wittily to have said of a good man that died about the time of the battle of Leuctra, 'How came he to have so much leisure as to die, when there was so much stirring?'
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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.