Plutarch Quotes
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Democritus said, words are but the shadows of actions.
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The state of life is most happy where superfluities are not required and necessities are not wanting.
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Alexander esteemed it more kingly to govern himself than to conquer his enemies.
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Demosthenes told Phocion, 'The Athenians will kill you some day when they once are in a rage.' 'And you,' said he, 'if they are once in their senses.'
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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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Anger turns the mind out of doors and bolts the entrance.
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Euripides was wont to say, silence was an answer to a wise man; but we seem to have greater occasion for it in our dealing with fools and unreasonable persons; for men of breeding and sense will be satisfied with reason and fair words.
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For, in the language of Heraclitus, the virtuous soul is pure and unmixed light, springing from the body as a flash of lightning darts from the cloud. But the soul that is carnal and immersed in sense, like a heavy and dank vapor, can with difficulty be kindled, and caused to raise its eyes heavenward.
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To one commending an orator for his skill in amplifying petty matters, Agesilaus said, 'I do not think that shoemaker a good workman that makes a great shoe for a little foot.'
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τὸ μὲν ἁμαρτεῖν μηδὲν ἐν πράγμασι μεγάλοις μεῖζον ἢ κατ' ἄνθρωπόν ἐστι...
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Good birth is a fine thing, but the merit is our ancestors.
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He (Cato) never gave his opinion in the Senate upon any other point whatever, without adding these words, "And, in my opinion Carthage should be destroyed." ["Delenda est Carthago."]
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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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Euripides was wont to say, 'Silence is an answer to a wise man.'
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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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I had rather men should ask why my statue is not set up, than why it is.
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Rather I fear on the contrary that while we banish painful thoughts we may banish memory as well.
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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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When the candles are out all women are fair.
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When another is asked a question, take special care not to interrupt to answer it yourself.
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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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When I myself had twice or thrice made a resolute resistance unto anger, the like befell me that did the Thebans; who, having once foiled the Lacedaemonians (who before that time had held themselves invincible), never after lost so much as one battle which they fought against them.
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Children are to be won to follow liberal studies by exhortations and rational motives, and on no account to be forced thereto by whipping.
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When one asked him what boys should learn, 'That,' said he, 'which they shall use when men.'