Plutarch Quotes
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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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Nature and wisdom never are at strife.
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To find fault is easy; to do better may be difficult.
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In human life there is constant change of fortune; and it is unreasonable to expect an exemption from the common fate. Life itself decays, and all things are daily changing.
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Vultures are the most righteous of birds: they do not attack even the smallest living creature.
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Democritus said, words are but the shadows of actions.
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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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Immoderate grief is selfish, harmful, brings no advantage to either the mourner or the mourned, and dishonors the dead.
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The talkative listen to no one, for they are ever speaking. And the first evil that attends those who know not to be silent is that they hear nothing.
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He made one of Antipater's recommendation a judge; and perceiving afterwards that his hair and beard were coloured, he removed him, saying, 'I could not think one that was faithless in his hair could be trusty in his deeds.'
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The pilot cannot mitigate the billows or calm the winds.
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Why does pouring oil on the sea make it clear and calm? Is it for that the winds, slipping the smooth oil, have no force, nor cause any waves?
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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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Antiphanes said merrily that in a certain city the cold was so intense that words were congealed as soon as spoken, but that after some time they thawed and became audible; so that the words spoken in winter articulated next summer.
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Friendship requires a steady, constant, and unchangeable character, a person that is uniform in his intimacy.
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Socrates... said he was not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.
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It is wise to be silent when occasion requires, and better than to speak, though never so well.
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Be ruled by time, the wisest counsellor of all.
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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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After he routed Pharnaces Ponticus at the first assault, he wrote thus to his friends: 'I came, I saw, I conquered.'
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So also it is good not always to make a friend of the person who is expert in twining himself around us; but, after testing them, to attach ourselves to those who are worthy of our affection and likely to be serviceable to us.
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Even a nod from a person who is esteemed is of more force than a thousand arguments or studied sentences from others.
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The whole life of man is but a point of time; let us enjoy it.
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Archimedes had stated, that given the force, any given weight might be moved; and even boasted that if there were another earth, by going into it he could remove this.