Plutarch Quotes
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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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Poverty is not dishonorable in itself, but only when it comes from idleness, intemperance, extravagance, and folly.
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Caesar's wife should be above suspicion.
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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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I, for my part, wonder of what sort of feeling, mind or reason that man was possessed who was first to pollute his mouth with gore, and to allow his lips to touch the flesh of a murdered being: who spread his table with the mangled forms of dead bodies, and claimed as daily food and dainty dishes what but now were beings endowed with movement, perception and with voice. …but for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh, we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that portion of life and time it had been born in to the world to enjoy.
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Nothing made the horse so fat as the king's eye.
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When men are arrived at the goal, they should not turn back.
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The same intelligence is required to marshal an army in battle and to order a good dinner. The first must be as formidable as possible, the second as pleasant as possible, to the participants.
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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.
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Grief is natural; the absence of all feeling is undesirable, but moderation in grief should be observed, as in the face of all good or evil.
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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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Pythias once, scoffing at Demosthenes, said that his arguments smelt of the lamp.
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There is no perfecter endowment in man than political virtue.
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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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What can they suffer that do not fear to die?
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He is a fool who leaves things close at hand to follow what is out of reach.
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Alcibiades had a very handsome dog, that cost him seven thousand drachmas; and he cut off his tail, 'that,' said he, 'the Athenians may have this story to tell of me, and may concern themselves no further with me.'
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Wisdom is neither gold, nor silver, nor fame, nor wealth, nor health, nor strength, nor beauty.
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Nothing exists in the intellect that has not first gone through the senses.
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He who busies himself in mean occupations, produces in the very pains he takes about things of little or no use, an evidence against himself of his negligence and indisposition to what is really good.
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Being nimble and light-footed, his father encouraged him to run in the Olympic race. 'Yes,' said he, 'if there were any kings there to run with me.'
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Had I a careful and pleasant companion that should show me my angry face in a glass, I should not at all take it ill; to behold man's self so unnaturally disguised and dishonored will conduce not a little to the impeachment of anger.
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As it is in the proverb, played Cretan against Cretan.
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It is no great wonder if in long process of time, while fortune takes her course hither and thither, numerous coincidences should spontaneously occur. If the number and variety of subjects to be wrought upon be infinite, it is all the more easy for fortune, with such an abundance of material, to effect this similarity of results.