Plutarch Quotes
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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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Authority and place demonstrate and try the tempers of men, by moving every passion and discovering every frailty.
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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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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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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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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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Hesiod might as well have kept his breath to cool his pottage.
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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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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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Where two discourse, if the anger of one rises, he is the wise man who lets the contest fall.
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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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I confess myself the greatest coward in the world, for I dare not do an ill thing.
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The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.
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Time is the wisest of all counselors.
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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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We rich men count our felicity and happiness to lie in these superfluities, and not in those necessary things.
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Proper listening is the foundation of proper living.
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An old doting fool, with one foot already in the grave.
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Riches for the most part are hurtful to them that possess them.
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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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Where the lion's skin will not reach, you must patch it out with the fox's.
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'Young men,' said Cæsar, 'hear an old man to whom old men hearkened when he was young.'