Plutarch Quotes
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Either is both, and Both is neither.
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There is no stronger test of a person's character than power and authority, exciting as they do every passion, and discovering every latent vice.
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Memory: what wonders it performs in preserving and storing up things gone by - or rather, things that are.
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When Demaratus was asked whether he held his tongue because he was a fool or for want of words, he replied, 'A fool cannot hold his tongue.'
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To one that promised to give him hardy cocks that would die fighting, 'Prithee,' said Cleomenes, 'give me cocks that will kill fighting.'
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Caesar's wife should be above suspicion.
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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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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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To sing the same tune, as the saying is, is in everything cloying and offensive; but men are generally pleased with variety.
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Poverty is dishonorable, not in itself, but when it is a proof of laziness, intemperance, luxury, and carelessness; whereas in a person that is temperate, industrious, just and valiant, and who uses all his virtues for the public good, it shows a great and lofty mind.
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Aristodemus, a friend of Antigonus, supposed to be a cook's son, advised him to moderate his gifts and expenses. 'Thy words,' said he, 'Aristodemus, smell of the apron.'
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Pythias once, scoffing at Demosthenes, said that his arguments smelt of the lamp.
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When a man's struggle begins within oneself, the man is worth something.
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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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Painting is silent poetry.
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Statesmen are not only liable to give an account of what they say or do in public, but there is a busy inquiry made into their very meals, beds, marriages, and every other sportive or serious action.
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It is not the most distinguished achievements that men's virtues or vices may be best discovered; but very often an action of small note. An casual remark or joke shall distinguish a person's real character more than the greatest sieges, or the most important battles.
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Phocion compared the speeches of Leosthenes to cypress-trees. 'They are tall,' said he, 'and comely, but bear no fruit.'
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Nothing exists in the intellect that has not first gone through the senses.
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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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Knowledge of divine things for the most part, as Heraclitus says, is lost to us by incredulity.
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A Locanian having plucked all the feathers off from a nightingale and seeing what a little body it had, "surely," quoth he, "thou art all voice and nothing else.
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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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Playing the Cretan with the Cretans (i.e. lying to liars).