Plutarch Quotes
-
Did you not know, then, that to-day Lucullus sups with Lucullus?
-
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.
-
A healer of others, himself diseased.
-
Where two discourse, if the anger of one rises, he is the wise man who lets the contest fall.
-
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.'
-
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.
-
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.
-
Time is the wisest of all counselors.
-
It is a true proverb, that if you live with a lame man, you will learn to limp.
-
The old proverb was now made good, 'the mountain had brought forth a mouse.'
-
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?
-
It is easy to utter what has been kept silent, but impossible to recall what has been uttered.
-
Riches for the most part are hurtful to them that possess them.
-
He who first called money the sinews of the state seems to have said this with special reference to war.
-
'Young men,' said Cæsar, 'hear an old man to whom old men hearkened when he was young.'
-
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.
-
A good man will take care of his horses and dogs, not only while they are young, but when old and past service.
-
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.'
-
Blinded as they are to their true character by self-love, every man is his own first and chiefest flatterer, prepared, therefore, to welcome the flatterer from the outside, who only comes confirming the verdict of the flatterer within.
-
Said Scopas of Thessaly, 'We rich men count our felicity and happiness to lie in these superfluities, and not in those necessary things.'