Plutarch Quotes
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Custom is almost a second nature.
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Whenever Alexander heard Philip had taken any town of importance, or won any signal victory, instead of rejoicing at it altogether, he would tell his companions that his father would anticipate everything, and leave him and them no opportunities of performing great and illustrious actions.
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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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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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Philosophy finds talkativeness a disease very difficult and hard to cure. For its remedy, conversation, requires hearers: but talkative people hear nobody, for they are ever prating. And the first evil this inability to keep silence produces is an inability to listen.
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As those persons who despair of ever being rich make little account of small expenses, thinking that little added to a little will never make any great sum.
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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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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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Like watermen, who look astern while they row the boat ahead.
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A traveller at Sparta, standing long upon one leg, said to a Lacedaemonian, "I do not believe you can do as much." "True," said he, "but every goose can."
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The measure of a man is the way he bears up under misfortune.
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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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Rather I fear on the contrary that while we banish painful thoughts we may banish memory as well.
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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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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 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.
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It is a thing of no great difficulty to raise objections against another man's oration, it is a very easy matter; but to produce a better in it's place is a work extremely troublesome.
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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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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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The soul of man... is a portion or a copy of the soul of the Universe and is joined together on principles and in proportions corresponding to those which govern the Universe.
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To find fault is easy; to do better may be difficult.
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Said Periander, 'Hesiod might as well have kept his breath to cool his pottage.'
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Themistocles being asked whether he would rather be Achilles or Homer, said, 'Which would you rather be,-a conqueror in the Olympic games, or the crier that proclaims who are conquerors?'
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If Nature be not improved by instruction, it is blind; if instruction be not assisted by Nature, it is maimed; and if exercise fail of the assistance of both, it is imperfect.