Plutarch Quotes
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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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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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Rest is the sweet sauce of labor.
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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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'These Macedonians,' said he, 'are a rude and clownish people, that call a spade a spade.'
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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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Of all the disorders in the soul, envy is the only one no one confesses to.
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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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He is a fool who lets slip a bird in the hand for a bird in the bush.
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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.
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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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The general himself ought to be such a one as can at the same time see both forward and backward.
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Music, to create harmony, must investigate discord.
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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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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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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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He [Caesar] loved the treason, but hated the traitor.
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The authors of great evils know best how to remove them.
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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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Come back with your shield - or on it.
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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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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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It is easy to utter what has been kept silent, but impossible to recall what has been uttered.
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Oh, what a world full of pain we create, for a little taste upon the tongue.