Plutarch Quotes
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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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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.'
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Playing the Cretan with the Cretans (i.e. lying to liars).
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If you declare that you are naturally designed for such a diet, then first kill for yourself what you want to eat. Do it, however, only through your own resources, unaided by cleaver or cudgel or any kind of ax.
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He (Cato) never gave his opinion in the Senate upon any other point whatever, without adding these words, "And, in my opinion Carthage should be destroyed." ["Delenda est Carthago."]
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Being about to pitch his camp in a likely place, and hearing there was no hay to be had for the cattle, 'What a life,' said he, 'is ours, since we must live according to the convenience of asses!'
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As Cæsar was at supper the discourse was of death,-which sort was the best. 'That,' said he, 'which is unexpected.'
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Nothing exists in the intellect that has not first gone through the senses.
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The soul of man... is a portion or a copy of the soul of the Universe and is joined together on principles and in proportions corresponding to those which govern the Universe.
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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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Agesilaus was very fond of his children; and it is reported that once toying with them he got astride upon a reed as upon a horse, and rode about the room; and being seen by one of his friends, he desired him not to speak of it till he had children of his own.
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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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There is no debt with so much prejudice put off as that of justice.
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Cicero said loud-bawling orators were driven by their weakness to noise, as lame men to take horse.
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A few vices are sufficient to darken many virtues.
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I have heard that Tiberius used to say that that man was ridiculous, who after sixth years, appealed to a physician.
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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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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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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.'
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Distressed valor challenges great respect, even from an enemy.
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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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God is the brave man's hope, and not the coward's excuse.
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Athenodorus says hydrophobia, or water-dread, was first discovered in the time of Asclepiades.
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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.