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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.
Plutarch -
Philosophy finds talkativeness a disease very difficult and hard to cure. For its remedy, conversation, requires hearers: but talkative people hear nobody, for they are ever prating. And the first evil this inability to keep silence produces is an inability to listen.
Plutarch
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There is no debt with so much prejudice put off as that of justice.
Plutarch -
It is wise to be silent when occasion requires, and better than to speak, though never so well.
Plutarch -
Antiphanes said merrily that in a certain city the cold was so intense that words were congealed as soon as spoken, but that after some time they thawed and became audible; so that the words spoken in winter articulated next summer.
Plutarch -
Ought a man to be confident that he deserves his good fortune, and think much of himself when he has overcome a nation, or city, or empire; or does fortune give this as an example to the victor also of the uncertainty of human affairs, which never continue in one stay? For what time can there be for us mortals to feel confident, when our victories over others especially compel us to dread fortune, and while we are exulting, the reflection that the fatal day comes now to one, now to another, in regular succession, dashes our joy.
Plutarch -
Speech is like cloth of Arras opened and put abroad, whereby the imagery doth appear in figure; whereas in thoughts they lie but as packs.
Plutarch -
Anger turns the mind out of doors and bolts the entrance.
Plutarch
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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.
Plutarch -
Moral good is a practical stimulus; it is no sooner seen than it inspires an impulse to practise.
Plutarch -
In his house he had a large looking-glass, before which he would stand and go through his exercises.
Plutarch -
Epaminondas is reported wittily to have said of a good man that died about the time of the battle of Leuctra, 'How came he to have so much leisure as to die, when there was so much stirring?'
Plutarch -
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.
Plutarch -
He is a fool who leaves things close at hand to follow what is out of reach.
Plutarch
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For there is no virtue, the honour and credit for which procures a man more odium from the elite than that of justice; and this, because more than any other, it acquires a man power and authority among the common people. For they only honour the valiant and admire the wise, while in addition they also love just men, and put entire trust and confidence in them.
Plutarch -
Words will build no walls.
Plutarch -
Pythagoras, when he was asked what time was, answered that it was the soul of this world.
Plutarch -
It is not reasonable that he who does not shoot should hit the mark, nor that he who does not stand fast at his post should win the day, or that the helpless man should succeed or the coward prosper.
Plutarch -
Moral good is a practical stimulus; it is no sooner seen than it inspires an impulse to practice.
Plutarch -
These are the materials for reflection which history affords to those who choose to make use of them.
Plutarch
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Playing the Cretan with the Cretans (i.e. lying to liars).
Plutarch -
Rather I fear on the contrary that while we banish painful thoughts we may banish memory as well.
Plutarch -
It is a difficult task, O citizens, to make speeches to the belly, which has no ears.
Plutarch -
Spintharus, speaking in commendation of Epaminondas, says he scarce ever met with any man who knew more and spoke less.
Plutarch