Plutarch Quotes
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To please the many is to displease the wise.
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The wildest colts make the best horses.
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For my part, I had rather be the first man among these fellows than the second man in Rome.
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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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For man is a plant, not fixed in the earth, nor immovable, but heavenly, whose head, rising as it were from a root upwards, is turned towards heaven.
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The worship most acceptable to God comes from a thankful and cheerful heart.
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Lysander said, 'Where the lion's skin will not reach, it must be pieced with the fox's.'
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When one told Plistarchus that a notorious railer spoke well of him, 'I 'll lay my life,' said he, 'somebody hath told him I am dead, for he can speak well of no man living.'
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Man is neither by birth nor disposition a savage, nor of unsocial habits, but only becomes so by indulging in vices contrary to his nature.
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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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Abstruse questions must have abstruse answers.
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Philip being arbitrator betwixt two wicked persons, he commanded one to fly out of Macedonia and the other to pursue him.
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Why does pouring Oil on the Sea make it Clear and Calm? Is it that the winds, slipping the smooth oil, have no force, nor cause any waves?
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When Hermodotus in his poems described Antigonus as the son of Helios, 'My valet-de-chambre,' said he, 'is not aware of this.'
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But being overborne with numbers, and nobody daring to face about, stretching out his hands to heaven, [Romulus] prayed to Jupiter to stop the army, and not to neglect but maintain the Roman cause, now in extreme danger. The prayer was no sooner made, than shame and respect for their king checked many; the fears of the fugitives changed suddenly into confidence.
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The poor go to war, to fight and die for the delights, riches, and superfluities of others.
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Most people do not understand until old age what Plato tells them when they are young.
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Note that the eating of flesh is not only physically against nature, but it also makes us spiritually coarse and gross by reason of satiety and surfeit.
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It is no flattery to give a friend a due character; for commendation is as much the duty of a friend as reprehension.
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... being perpetually charmed by his familiar siren, that is, by his geometry, he neglected to eat and drink and took no care of his person; that he was often carried by force to the baths, and when there he would trace geometrical figures in the ashes of the fire, and with his finger draws lines upon his body when it was anointed with oil, being in a state of great ecstasy and divinely possessed by his science.