Plutarch Quotes
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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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Wisdom is neither gold, nor silver, nor fame, nor wealth, nor health, nor strength, nor beauty.
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Friendship requires a steady, constant, and unchangeable character, a person that is uniform in his intimacy.
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Let us not wonder if something happens which never was before, or if something doth not appear among us with which the ancients were acquainted.
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A few vices are sufficient to darken many virtues.
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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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Beauty is the flower of virtue.
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There are two sentences inscribed upon the Delphic oracle, hugely accommodated to the usages of man's life: 'Know thyself,' 68 and 'Nothing too much;' and upon these all other precepts depend.
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Grief is natural; the absence of all feeling is undesirable, but moderation in grief should be observed, as in the face of all good or evil.
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What can they suffer that do not fear to die?
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Leo Byzantius said, 'What would you do, if you saw my wife, who scarce reaches up to my knees?… Yet,' went he on, 'as little as we are, when we fall out with each other, the city of Byzantium is not big enough to hold us.'
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And Archimedes, as he was washing, thought of a manner of computing the proportion of gold in King Hiero's crown by seeing the water flowing over the bathing-stool. He leaped up as one possessed or inspired, crying, 'I have found it! Eureka!'
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When Alexander asked Diogenes whether he wanted anything, 'Yes,' said he, 'I would have you stand from between me and the sun.'
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Nor let us part with justice, like a cheap and common thing, for a small and trifling price.
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Philosophy is the art of living.
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Distressed valor challenges great respect, even from an enemy.
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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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Playing the Cretan with the Cretans (i.e. lying to liars).
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A lover's soul lives in the body of his mistress.
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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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In his house he had a large looking-glass, before which he would stand and go through his exercises.
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Thrasyllus the Cynic begged a drachm of Antigonus. 'That,' said he, 'is too little for a king to give.' 'Why, then,' said the other, 'give me a talent.' 'And that,' said he, 'is too much for a Cynic (or, for a dog) to receive.'
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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.