Plutarch Quotes
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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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Rest is the sweet sauce of labor.
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Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks.
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Demosthenes overcame and rendered more distinct his inarticulate and stammering pronunciation by speaking with pebbles in his mouth.
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Silence is an answer to a wise man.
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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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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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It is not reasonable that he who does not shoot should hit the mark, nor that he who does not stand fast at his post should win the day, or that the helpless man should succeed or the coward prosper.
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A good man will take care of his horses and dogs, not only while they are young, but when old and past service.
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Antagoras the poet was boiling a conger, and Antigonus, coming behind him as he was stirring his skillet, said, 'Do you think, Antagoras, that Homer boiled congers when he wrote the deeds of Agamemnon?' Antagoras replied, 'Do you think, O king, that Agamemnon, when he did such exploits, was a peeping in his army to see who boiled congers?'
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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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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.
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I am all that hath been, and is, and shall be; and my veil no mortal has hitherto raised.
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'These Macedonians,' said he, 'are a rude and clownish people, that call a spade a spade.'
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He [Caesar] loved the treason, but hated the traitor.
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Music, to create harmony, must investigate discord.
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The authors of great evils know best how to remove them.
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When some were saying that if Cæsar should march against the city they could not see what forces there were to resist him, Pompey replied with a smile, bidding them be in no concern, 'for whenever I stamp my foot in any part of Italy there will rise up forces enough in an instant, both horse and foot.'
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Agesilaus being invited once to hear a man who admirably imitated the nightingale, he declined, saying he had heard the nightingale itself.
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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.
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Such power I gave the people as might do, Abridged not what they had, now lavished new, Those that were great in wealth and high in place My counsel likewise kept from all disgrace. Before them both I held my shield of might, And let not either touch the other's right.
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Nothing is cheap which is superfluous, for what one does not need, is dear at a penny.
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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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When Demosthenes was asked what was the first part of oratory, he answered, 'Action;' and which was the second, he replied, 'Action;' and which was the third, he still answered, 'Action.'