Plutarch Quotes
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Wise men are able to make a fitting use even of their enmities.
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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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Nature without learning is blind, learning apart from nature is fractional, and practice in the absence of both is aimless.
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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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A healer of others, himself diseased.
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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.
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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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Hesiod might as well have kept his breath to cool his pottage.
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Themistocles said that a man's discourse was like to a rich Persian carpet, the beautiful figures and patterns of which can be shown only by spreading and extending it out; when it is contracted and folded up, they are obscured and lost.
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I would rather excel in the knowledge of what is excellent, than in the extent of my power and possessions.
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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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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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He who first called money the sinews of the state seems to have said this with special reference to war.
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What sort of tree is there which will not, if neglected, grow crooked and unfruitful; what but Will, if rightly ordered, prove productive and bring its fruit to maturity? What strength of body is there which will not lose its vigor and fall to decay by laziness, nice usage, and debauchery?
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It is the admirer of himself, and not the admirer of virtue, that thinks himself superior to others.
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The old proverb was now made good, 'the mountain had brought forth a mouse.'
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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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Eurybiades lifting up his staff as if he were going to strike, Themistocles said, 'Strike, if you will; but hear'.
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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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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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It is a true proverb, that if you live with a lame man, you will learn to limp.
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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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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 . . . There is nobody that is willing to eat even a lifeless and a dead thing even as it is; so they boil it, and roast it, and alter it by fire and medicines, as it were, changing and quenching the slaughtered gore with thousands of sweet sauces, that the palate being thereby deceived may admit of such uncouth fare.
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The human heart becomes softened by hearing of instances of gentleness and consideration.