Plutarch Quotes
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A prating barber asked Archelaus how he would be trimmed. He answered, 'In silence.'
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Nature without learning is blind, learning apart from nature is fractional, and practice in the absence of both is aimless.
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Julius Caesar divorced his wife Pompeia, but declared at the trial that he knew nothing of what was alleged against her and Clodius. When asked why, in that case, he had divorced her, he replied: Because I would have the chastity of my wife clear even of suspicion.
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Reason speaks and feeling bites.
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Instead of using medicine, better fast today.
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It were better to have no opinion of God at all than such a one as is unworthy of him; for the one is only belief - the other contempt.
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Solon being asked, namely, what city was best to live in. That city, he replied, in which those who are not wronged, no less than those who are wronged, exert themselves to punish the wrongdoers.
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The giving of riches and honors to a wicked man is like giving strong wine to him that hath a fever.
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Wise men are able to make a fitting use even of their enmities.
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Did you not know, then, that to-day Lucullus sups with Lucullus?
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The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.
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'I will show,' said Agesilaus, 'that it is not the places that grace men, but men the places.'
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Nothing is harder to direct than a man in prosperity; nothing more easily managed that one is adversity.
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The whole of life is but a moment of time. It is our duty, therefore to use it, not to misuse it.
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Antisthenes says that in a certain faraway land the cold is so intense that words freeze as soon as they are uttered, and after some time then thaw and become audible, so that words spoken in winter go unheard until the next summer.
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The first man . . . ventured to call food and nourishment the parts that had a little before bellowed and cried, moved and lived. How could his eyes endure the slaughter when throats were slit and hides flayed and limbs torn from limb? How could his nose endure the stench? How was it that the pollution did not turn away his taste, which made contact with the sores of others and sucked juices and serums from mortal wounds?
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So long as he was personally present, [Alcibiades] had the perfect mastery of his political adversaries; calumny only succeeded in his absence.
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Our senses through ignorance of Reality, falsely tell us that what appears to be, is. FEAR = False Evidence Appearing Real.
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It is part of a good man to do great and noble deeds, though he risk everything.
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'Young men,' said Cæsar, 'hear an old man to whom old men hearkened when he was young.'
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A human body in no way resembles those that were born for ravenousness; it hath no hawk's bill, no sharp talon, no roughness of teeth, no such strength of stomach or heat of digestion, as can be sufficient to convert or alter such heavy and fleshy fare.
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When Darius offered him ten thousand talents, and to divide Asia equally with him, 'I would accept it,' said Parmenio, 'were I Alexander.' 'And so truly would I,' said Alexander, 'if I were Parmenio.' But he answered Darius that the earth could not bear two suns, nor Asia two kings.
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When Philip had news brought him of divers and eminent successes in one day, 'O Fortune!' said he, 'for all these so great kindnesses do me some small mischief.'
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For the mind does not require filling like a bottle, but rather, like wood, it only requires kindling to create in it an impulse to think independently and an ardent desire for the truth.