Plutarch Quotes
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Water continually dropping will wear hard rocks hollow.
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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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When one asked him what boys should learn, 'That,' said he, 'which they shall use when men.'
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When another is asked a question, take special care not to interrupt to answer it yourself.
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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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What can they suffer that do not fear to die?
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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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The usual disease of princes, grasping covetousness, had made them suspicious and quarrelsome neighbors.
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Xenophanes said, 'I confess myself the greatest coward in the world, for I dare not do an ill thing.'
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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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Thus our judgments, if they do not borrow from reason and philosophy a fixity and steadiness of purpose in their acts, are easily swayed and influenced by the praise or blame of others, which make us distrust our own opinions.
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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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The generous mind adds dignity to every act, and nothing misbecomes it.
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Not by lamentations and mournful chants ought we to celebrate the funeral of a good man, but by hymns, for in ceasing to be numbered with mortals he enters upon the heritage of a diviner life.
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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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Friendship requires a steady, constant, and unchangeable character, a person that is uniform in his intimacy.
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Poverty is not dishonorable in itself, but only when it comes from idleness, intemperance, extravagance, and folly.
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But the Lacedaemonians, who make it their first principle of action to serve their country's interest, know not any thing to be just or unjust by any measure but that.
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Apothegms are the most infallible mirror to represent a man truly what he is.
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As it is in the proverb, played Cretan against Cretan.
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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.
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Cato the elder wondered how that city was preserved wherein a fish was sold for more than an ox.
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Nature without learning is like a blind man; learning without Nature, like a maimed one; practice without both, incomplete. As in agriculture a good soil is first sought for, then a skilful husbandman, and then good seed; in the same way nature corresponds to the soil, the teacher to the husbandman, precepts and instruction to the seed.
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Let us not wonder if something happens which never was before, or if something doth not appear among us with which the ancients were acquainted.