Plutarch Quotes
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When malice is joined to envy, there is given forth poisonous and feculent matter, as ink from the cuttle-fish.
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When a man's struggle begins within oneself, the man is worth something.
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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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For ease and speed in doing a thing do not give the work lasting solidity or exactness of beauty.
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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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Rather I fear on the contrary that while we banish painful thoughts we may banish memory as well.
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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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What can they suffer that do not fear to die?
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Water continually dropping will wear hard rocks hollow.
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Nothing made the horse so fat as the king's eye.
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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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Poverty is not dishonorable in itself, but only when it comes from idleness, intemperance, extravagance, and folly.
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As it is in the proverb, played Cretan against Cretan.
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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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A remorseful change of mind renders even a noble action base, whereas the determination which is grounded on knowledge and reason cannot change even if its actions fail.
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Friendship requires a steady, constant, and unchangeable character, a person that is uniform in his intimacy.
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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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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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Xenophanes said, 'I confess myself the greatest coward in the world, for I dare not do an ill thing.'
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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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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 I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes.
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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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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.