Plutarch Quotes
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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.
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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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Where two discourse, if the anger of one rises, he is the wise man who lets the contest fall.
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He who first called money the sinews of the state seems to have said this with special reference to war.
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Hesiod might as well have kept his breath to cool his pottage.
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Sometimes small incidents, rather than glorious exploits, give us the best evidence of character. So, as portrait painters are more exact in doing the face, where the character is revealed, than the rest of the body, I must be allowed to give my more particular attention to the marks of the souls of men.
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Being conscious of having done a wicked action leaves stings of remorse behind it, which, like an ulcer in the flesh, makes the mind smart with perpetual wounds; for reason, which chases away all other pains, creates repentance, shames the soul with confusion, and punishes it with torment.
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They fought indeed and were slain, but it was to maintain the luxury and the wealth of other men.
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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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Of the land which the Romans gained by conquest from their neighbours, part they sold publicly, and turned the remainder into common; this common land they assigned to such of the citizens as were poor and indigent, for which they were to pay only a small acknowledgment into the public treasury. But when the wealthy men began to offer larger rents, and drive the poorer people out, it was enacted by law that no person whatever should enjoy more than five hundred acres of ground.
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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 mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.
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The most perfect soul, says Heraclitus, is a dry light, which flies out of the body as lightning breaks from a cloud.
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As bees extract honey from thyme, the strongest and driest of herbs, so sensible men often get advantage and profit from the most awkward circumstances.
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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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Time is the wisest of all counselors.
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An old doting fool, with one foot already in the grave.
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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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I confess myself the greatest coward in the world, for I dare not do an ill thing.
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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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Riches for the most part are hurtful to them that possess them.
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Where the lion's skin will not reach, you must patch it out with the fox's.
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For the correct analogy for the mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting.
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This excerpt is presented as reproduced by Copernicus in the preface to De Revolutionibus: "Some think that the earth remains at rest. But Philolaus the Pythagorean believes that, like the sun and moon, it revolves around the fire in an oblique circle. Heraclides of Pontus and Ecphantus the Pythagorean make the earth move, not in a progressive motion, but like a wheel in rotation from west to east around its own center."