Plutarch Quotes
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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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It was not important how many enemies there are, but where the enemy is.
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The worship most acceptable to God comes from a thankful and cheerful heart.
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Justice makes the life of such as are in prosperity, power and authority the life of a god, and injustice turns it to that of a beast.
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To do an evil action is base; to do a good action without incurring danger is common enough; but it is the part of a good man to do great and noble deeds, though he risks every thing.
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Most people do not understand until old age what Plato tells them when they are young.
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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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The wildest colts make the best horses.
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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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A few vices are sufficient to darken many virtues.
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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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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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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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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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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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... 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.
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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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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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Abstruse questions must have abstruse answers.
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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.