Plutarch Quotes
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Socrates... said he was not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.
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Said Periander, 'Hesiod might as well have kept his breath to cool his pottage.'
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To find fault is easy; to do better may be difficult.
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'You speak truth,' said Themistocles; 'I should never have been famous if I had been of Seriphus; nor you, had you been of Athens'.
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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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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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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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For ease and speed in doing a thing do not give the work lasting solidity or exactness of beauty.
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Vultures are the most righteous of birds: they do not attack even the smallest living creature.
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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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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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Poverty is never dishonourable in itself, but only when it is a mark of sloth, intemperance, extravagance, or thoughtlessness. When, on the other hand, it is the handmaid of a sober, industrious, righteous, and brave man, who devotes all his powers to the service of the people, it is the sign of a lofty spirit that harbours no mean thoughts.
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It is indeed a desirable thing to be well-descended, but the glory belongs to our ancestors.
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The pilot cannot mitigate the billows or calm the winds.
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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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Speech is like cloth of Arras opened and put abroad, whereby the imagery doth appear in figure; whereas in thoughts they lie but as packs.
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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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Water continually dropping will wear hard rocks hollow.
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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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Be ruled by time, the wisest counsellor of all.
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The superstitious man wishes he did not believe in gods, as the atheist does not, but fears to disbelieve in them.
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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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Abstain from beans; that is, keep out of public offices, for anciently the choice of the officers of state was made by beans.
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God is the brave man's hope, and not the coward's excuse.