Plutarch Quotes
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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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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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Nature without learning is blind, learning apart from nature is fractional, and practice in the absence of both is aimless.
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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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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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Vos vestros servate, meos mihi linquite mores You keep to your own ways, and leave mine to me.
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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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A healer of others, himself diseased.
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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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Hesiod might as well have kept his breath to cool his pottage.
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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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I would rather excel in the knowledge of what is excellent, than in the extent of my power and possessions.
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The human heart becomes softened by hearing of instances of gentleness and consideration.
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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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Lysander said that the law spoke too softly to be heard in such a noise of 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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He who first called money the sinews of the state seems to have said this with special reference to war.
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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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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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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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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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'Young men,' said Cæsar, 'hear an old man to whom old men hearkened when he was young.'
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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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It is a true proverb, that if you live with a lame man, you will learn to limp.