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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.'
Plutarch -
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.
Plutarch
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The man who is completely wise and virtuous has no need of glory, except so far as it disposes and eases his way to action by the greater trust that it procures him.
Plutarch -
The generous mind adds dignity to every act, and nothing misbecomes it.
Plutarch -
Water continually dropping will wear hard rocks hollow.
Plutarch -
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!'
Plutarch -
Themistocles said to Antiphales, 'Time, young man, has taught us both a lesson'.
Plutarch -
The new king [Alexander the Great] should perform acts so important and glorious as would make the poets and musicians of future ages labour and sweat to describe and celebrate him.
Plutarch
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Cato used to assert that wise men profited more by fools than fools by wise men; for that wise men avoided the faults of fools, but that fools would not imitate the good examples of wise men.
Plutarch -
Themistocles being asked whether he would rather be Achilles or Homer, said, 'Which would you rather be,-a conqueror in the Olympic games, or the crier that proclaims who are conquerors?'
Plutarch -
Are you not ashamed to mix tame fruits with blood and slaughter? You are indeed wont to call serpents, leopards, and lions savage creatures; but yet yourselves are defiled with blood, and come nothing behind them in cruelty. What they kill is their ordinary nourishment, but what you kill is your better fare.
Plutarch -
The flatterer's object is to please in everything he does; whereas the true friend always does what is right, and so often gives pleasure, often pain, not wishing the latter, but not shunning it either, if he deems it best.
Plutarch -
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."]
Plutarch -
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.
Plutarch
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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.'
Plutarch -
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.
Plutarch -
Either is both, and Both is neither.
Plutarch -
While Leonidas was preparing to make his stand, a Persian envoy arrived. The envoy explained to Leonidas the futility of trying to resist the advance of the Great King's army and demanded that the Greeks lay down their arms and submit to the might of Persia. Leonidas laconically told Xerxes, "Come and get them.
Plutarch -
Xenophanes said, 'I confess myself the greatest coward in the world, for I dare not do an ill thing.'
Plutarch -
A fool cannot hold his tongue.
Plutarch
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Abstain from beans; that is, keep out of public offices, for anciently the choice of the officers of state was made by beans.
Plutarch -
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.'
Plutarch -
Knowledge of divine things for the most part, as Heraclitus says, is lost to us by incredulity.
Plutarch -
Lysander, when Dionysius sent him two gowns, and bade him choose which he would carry to his daughter, said, 'She can choose best,' and so took both away with him.
Plutarch