Plutarch Quotes
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Proper listening is the foundation of proper living.
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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.
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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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We rich men count our felicity and happiness to lie in these superfluities, and not in those necessary things.
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The general himself ought to be such a one as can at the same time see both forward and backward.
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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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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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It is a true proverb, that if you live with a lame man, you will learn to limp.
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Lycurgus the Lacedaemonian brought long hair into fashion among his countrymen, saying that it rendered those that were handsome more beautiful, and those that were deformed more terrible. To one that advised him to set up a democracy in Sparta, 'Pray,' said Lycurgus, 'do you first set up a democracy in your own house.'
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The whole life of man is but a point of time; let us enjoy it, therefore, while it lasts, and not spend it to no purpose.
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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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Wise men are able to make a fitting use even of their enmities.
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The old proverb was now made good, 'the mountain had brought forth a mouse.'
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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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Those who aim at great deeds must also suffer greatly.
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For many, as Cranton tells us, and those very wise men, not now but long ago, have deplored the condition of human nature, esteeming life a punishment, and to be born a man the highest pitch of calamity; this, Aristotle tells us, Silenus declared when he was brought captive to Midas.
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'T is a wise saying, Drive on your own track.
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A healer of others, himself diseased.
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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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Of all the disorders in the soul, envy is the only one no one confesses to.
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A Spartan woman, as she handed her son his shield, exhorted him saying, "As a warrior of Sparta come back with your shield or on it."
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Thus they let their anger and fury take from them the sense of humanity, and demonstrated that no beast is more savage than man when possessed with power answerable to his rage.
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Let us carefully observe those good qualities wherein our enemies excel us; and endeavor to excel them, by avoiding what is faulty, and imitating what is excellent in them.
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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.