Plutarch Quotes
-
I do not think that shoemaker a good workman that makes a great shoe for a little foot.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Mothers ought to bring up and nurse their own children; for they bring them up with greater affection and with greater anxiety, as loving them from the heart, and so to speak, every inch of them.
-
I don't need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod; my shadow does that much better.
-
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.'
-
The most perfect soul, says Heraclitus, is a dry light, which flies out of the body as lightning breaks from a cloud.
-
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.
-
It is the admirer of himself, and not the admirer of virtue, that thinks himself superior to others.
-
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.
-
Rest is the sweet sauce of labor.
-
Those are greedy of praise prove that they are poor in merit.
-
Fate leads him who follows it, and drags him who resist.
-
Nothing is cheap which is superfluous, for what one does not need, is dear at a penny.
-
The general himself ought to be such a one as can at the same time see both forward and backward.
-
Empire may be gained by gold, not gold by empire. It used, indeed, to be a proverb that 'It is not Philip, but Philip's gold that takes the cities of Greece.'
-
Learn to be pleased with everything...because it could always be worse, but isn't!
-
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.'
-
What meal is not expensive? That for which no animal is put to death. … one participating of feeling, of seeing, of hearing, of imagination, and of intellection; which each animal hath received from Nature for the acquiring of what is agreeable to it, and the avoiding what is disagreeable.
-
Time which diminishes all things increases understanding for the aging.
-
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?'
-
'These Macedonians,' said he, 'are a rude and clownish people, that call a spade a spade.'
-
Lying is a most disgraceful vice; it first despises God, and then fears men.
-
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."