Plutarch Quotes
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Moral good is a practical stimulus; it is no sooner seen than it inspires an impulse to practice.
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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.
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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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For, in the language of Heraclitus, the virtuous soul is pure and unmixed light, springing from the body as a flash of lightning darts from the cloud. But the soul that is carnal and immersed in sense, like a heavy and dank vapor, can with difficulty be kindled, and caused to raise its eyes heavenward.
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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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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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Archimedes had stated, that given the force, any given weight might be moved; and even boasted that if there were another earth, by going into it he could remove this.
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Playing the Cretan with the Cretans (i.e. lying to liars).
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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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Phocion compared the speeches of Leosthenes to cypress-trees. 'They are tall,' said he, 'and comely, but bear no fruit.'
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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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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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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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It was not important how many enemies there are, but where the enemy is.
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What All The World Knows Water is the principle, or the element, of things. All things are water.
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Caesar's wife should be above suspicion.
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Nothing exists in the intellect that has not first gone through the senses.
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Philosophy is the art of living.
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Whenever Alexander heard Philip had taken any town of importance, or won any signal victory, instead of rejoicing at it altogether, he would tell his companions that his father would anticipate everything, and leave him and them no opportunities of performing great and illustrious actions.
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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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It was the saying of Bion, that though the boys throw stones at frogs in sport, yet the frogs do not die in sport but in earnest.
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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.
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Spintharus, speaking in commendation of Epaminondas, says he scarce ever met with any man who knew more and spoke less.
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When men are arrived at the goal, they should not turn back.