Plutarch Quotes
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Eurybiades lifting up his staff as if he were going to strike, Themistocles said, 'Strike, if you will; but hear'.
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Vos vestros servate, meos mihi linquite mores You keep to your own ways, and leave mine to me.
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He who least likes courting favour, ought also least to think of resenting neglect; to feel wounded at being refused a distinction can only arise from an overweening appetite to have it.
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For he who gives no fuel to fire puts it out, and likewise he who does not in the beginning nurse his wrath and does not puff himself up with anger takes precautions against it and destroys it.
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The most glorious exploits do not always furnish us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men.
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After the battle in Pharsalia, when Pompey was fled, one Nonius said they had seven eagles left still, and advised to try what they would do. 'Your advice,' said Cicero, 'were good if we were to fight jackdaws.'
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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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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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The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.
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'And this,' said Cæsar, 'you know, young man, is more disagreeable for me to say than to do.'
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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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Politics is not like an ocean voyage or a military campaign... something which leaves off as soon as reached. It is not a public chore to be gotten over with. It is a way of life.
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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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There are two sentences inscribed upon the Ancient oracle... "Know thyself" and "Nothing too much"; and upon these all other precepts depend.
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A physician, after he had felt the pulse of Pausanias, and considered his constitution, saying, 'He ails nothing,' 'It is because, sir,' he replied, 'I use none of your physic.'
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Reason speaks and feeling bites.
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Foreign lady once remarked to the wife of a Spartan commander that the women of Sparta were the only women in the world who could rule men. "We are the only women who raise men," the Spartan lady replied.
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A prating barber asked Archelaus how he would be trimmed. He answered, 'In silence.'
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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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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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Socrates thought that if all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap, whence every one must take an equal portion, most persons would be contented to take their own and depart.
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Lysander said that the law spoke too softly to be heard in such a noise of war.
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Authority and place demonstrate and try the tempers of men, by moving every passion and discovering every frailty.
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When Anaxagoras was told of the death of his son, he only said, "I knew he was mortal." So we in all casualties of life should say "I knew my riches were uncertain, that my friend was but a man." Such considerations would soon pacify us, because all our troubles proceed from their being unexpected.