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According to the proverb, the best things are the most difficult.
Plutarch -
Cato used to assert that wise men profited more by fools than fools by wise men; for that wise men avoided the faults of fools, but that fools would not imitate the good examples of wise men.
Plutarch
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Anaximander says that men were first produced in fishes, and when they were grown up and able to help themselves were thrown up, and so lived upon the land.
Plutarch -
What can they suffer that do not fear to die?
Plutarch -
Apothegms are the most infallible mirror to represent a man truly what he is.
Plutarch -
I, for my own part, had much rather people should say of me that there neither is nor ever was such a man as Plutarch, than that they should say, 'Plutarch is an unsteady, fickle, froward, vindictive, and touchy fellow.'
Plutarch -
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.
Plutarch -
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.
Plutarch
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Nothing exists in the intellect that has not first gone through the senses.
Plutarch -
Poverty is not dishonorable in itself, but only when it comes from idleness, intemperance, extravagance, and folly.
Plutarch -
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.'
Plutarch -
Even a nod from a person who is esteemed is of more force than a thousand arguments or studied sentences from others.
Plutarch -
Immoderate grief is selfish, harmful, brings no advantage to either the mourner or the mourned, and dishonors the dead.
Plutarch -
τοῖς ἐγρηγορόσιν ἕνα καὶ κοινὸν κόσμον εἶναι, τῶν δὲ κοιμωμένων ἕκαστον εἰς ἴδιον ἀποστρέφεσθαι
Plutarch
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To the Greeks, the supreme function of music was to "praise the gods and educate the youth". In Egypt... Initiatory music was heard only in Temple rites because it carried the vibratory rhythms of other worlds and of a life beyond the mortal.
Plutarch -
Cato the elder wondered how that city was preserved wherein a fish was sold for more than an ox.
Plutarch -
The usual disease of princes, grasping covetousness, had made them suspicious and quarrelsome neighbors.
Plutarch -
As small letters hurt the sight, so do small matters him that is too much intent upon them; they vex and stir up anger, which begets an evil habit in him in reference to greater affairs.
Plutarch -
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.'
Plutarch -
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.'
Plutarch
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Are you not ashamed to mix tame fruits with blood and slaughter? You are indeed wont to call serpents, leopards, and lions savage creatures; but yet yourselves are defiled with blood, and come nothing behind them in cruelty. What they kill is their ordinary nourishment, but what you kill is your better fare.
Plutarch -
One made the observation of the people of Asia that they were all slaves to one man, merely because they could not pronounce that syllable No.
Plutarch -
The flatterer's object is to please in everything he does; whereas the true friend always does what is right, and so often gives pleasure, often pain, not wishing the latter, but not shunning it either, if he deems it best.
Plutarch -
I have heard that Tiberius used to say that that man was ridiculous, who after sixth years, appealed to a physician.
Plutarch