Plutarch Quotes
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Time is the wisest of all counselors.
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For the correct analogy for the mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting.
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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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Riches for the most part are hurtful to them that possess them.
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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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It is a true proverb, that if you live with a lame man, you will learn to limp.
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Proper listening is the foundation of proper living.
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This excerpt is presented as reproduced by Copernicus in the preface to De Revolutionibus: "Some think that the earth remains at rest. But Philolaus the Pythagorean believes that, like the sun and moon, it revolves around the fire in an oblique circle. Heraclides of Pontus and Ecphantus the Pythagorean make the earth move, not in a progressive motion, but like a wheel in rotation from west to east around its own center."
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'T is a wise saying, Drive on your own track.
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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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The measure of a man's life is the well spending of it, and not the length.
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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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Those who aim at great deeds must also suffer greatly.
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Wise men are able to make a fitting use even of their enmities.
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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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He is a fool who lets slip a bird in the hand for a bird in the bush.
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Silence is an answer to a wise man.
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Rest is the sweet sauce of labor.
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Children ought to be led to honorable practices by means of encouragement and reasoning, and most certainly not by blows and ill treatment.
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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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A healer of others, himself diseased.
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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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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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Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks.