Plutarch Quotes
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When men are arrived at the goal, they should not turn back.
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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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Nor is drunkenness censured for anything so much as its intemperate and endless talk.
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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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Evidence of trust begets trust, and love is reciprocated by love.
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Themistocles said that he certainly could not make use of any stringed instrument; could only, were a small and obscure city put into his hands, make it great and glorious.
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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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The worship most acceptable to God comes from a thankful and cheerful heart.
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To the Greeks, the supreme function of music was to "praise the gods and educate the youth". In Egypt... Initiatory music was heard only in Temple rites because it carried the vibratory rhythms of other worlds and of a life beyond the mortal.
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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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Poverty is not dishonorable in itself, but only when it comes from idleness, intemperance, extravagance, and folly.
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It is the usual consolation of the envious, if they cannot maintain their superiority, to represent those by whom they are surpassed as inferior to some one else.
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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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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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Nothing exists in the intellect that has not first gone through the senses.
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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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Knowledge of divine things for the most part, as Heraclitus says, is lost to us by incredulity.
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The usual disease of princes, grasping covetousness, had made them suspicious and quarrelsome neighbors.
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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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Pythias once, scoffing at Demosthenes, said that his arguments smelt of the lamp.
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Either is both, and Both is neither.
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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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If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes.
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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.