Plutarch Quotes
-
He [Caesar] loved the treason, but hated the traitor.
-
For the correct analogy for the mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting.
-
They are wrong who think that politics is like an ocean voyage or a military campaign, something to be done with some particular end in view, something which leaves off as soon as that end is reached. It is not a public chore, to be got over with. It is a way of life. It is the life of a domesticated political and social creature who is born with a love for public life, with a desire for honor, with a feeling for his fellows; and it lasts as long as need be.
-
An old doting fool, with one foot already in the grave.
-
Those who aim at great deeds must also suffer greatly.
-
Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little.
-
And when the physician said, 'Sir, you are an old man,' 'That happens,' replied Pausanias, 'because you never were my doctor.'
-
Go on, my friend, and fear nothing; you carry Cæsar and his fortunes in your boat.
-
As soft wax is apt to take the stamp of the seal, so are the minds of young children to receive the instruction imprinted on them.
-
I am all that hath been, and is, and shall be; and my veil no mortal has hitherto raised.
-
Themistocles replied that a man's discourse was like to a rich Persian carpet, the beautiful figures and patterns of which can only be shown by spreading and extending it out; when it is contracted and folded up, they are obscured and lost.
-
We rich men count our felicity and happiness to lie in these superfluities, and not in those necessary things.
-
He who owns a hundred sheep must fight with fifty wolves.
-
By these criteria let Alexander also be judged! For from his words, from his deeds, and from the instruction' which he imparted, it will be seen that he was indeed a philosopher.
-
Anacharsis said a man's felicity consists not in the outward and visible favours and blessings of Fortune, but in the inward and unseen perfections and riches of the mind.
-
But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy.
-
The abuse of buying and selling votes crept in and money began to play an important part in determining elections. Later on, this process of corruption spread to the law courts. And then to the army, and finally the Republic was subjected to the rule of emperors.
-
Agesilaus being invited once to hear a man who admirably imitated the nightingale, he declined, saying he had heard the nightingale itself.
-
Where the lion's skin will not reach, you must patch it out with the fox's.
-
The authors of great evils know best how to remove them.
-
I don't need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod; my shadow does that much better.
-
Fate, however, is to all appearance more unavoidable than unexpected.
-
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.
-
Fate leads him who follows it, and drags him who resist.