Plutarch Quotes
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Anger turns the mind out of doors and bolts the entrance.
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If any man think it a small matter, or of mean concernment, to bridle his tongue, he is much mistaken; for it is a point to be silent when occasion requires, and better than to speak, though never so well.
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He who cheats with an oath acknowledges that he is afraid of his enemy, but that he thinks little of God.
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And Archimedes, as he was washing, thought of a manner of computing the proportion of gold in King Hiero's crown by seeing the water flowing over the bathing-stool. He leaped up as one possessed or inspired, crying, 'I have found it! Eureka!'
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Water continually dropping will wear hard rocks hollow.
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Socrates... said he was not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.
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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.
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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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For ease and speed in doing a thing do not give the work lasting solidity or exactness of beauty.
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Evidence of trust begets trust, and love is reciprocated by love.
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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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If you hate your enemies, you will contract such a vicious habit of mind that it will break out upon those who are your friends, or those who are indifferent to you.
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Themistocles said that he certainly could not make use of any stringed instrument; could only, were a small and obscure city put into his hands, make it great and glorious.
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Friendship requires a steady, constant, and unchangeable character, a person that is uniform in his intimacy.
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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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The belly has no ears.
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It is a high distinction for a homely woman to be loved for her character rather than for beauty.
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Knowledge of divine things for the most part, as Heraclitus says, is lost to us by incredulity.
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Oh, what a world full of pain we create, for a little taste upon the tongue.
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What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.
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What All The World Knows Water is the principle, or the element, of things. All things are water.
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There were two brothers called Both and Either; perceiving Either was a good, understanding, busy fellow, and Both a silly fellow and good for little, Philip said, 'Either is both, and Both is neither.'
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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.
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A traveller at Sparta, standing long upon one leg, said to a Lacedæmonian, 'I do not believe you can do as much.' 'True,' said he, 'but every goose can.'