Plutarch Quotes
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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.
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τὸ μὲν ἁμαρτεῖν μηδὲν ἐν πράγμασι μεγάλοις μεῖζον ἢ κατ' ἄνθρωπόν ἐστι...
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To Harmodius, descended from the ancient Harmodius, when he reviled Iphicrates a shoemaker's son for his mean birth, 'My nobility,' said he, 'begins in me, but yours ends in you.'
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Lying is a most disgraceful vice; it first despises God, and then fears men.
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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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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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Politics is not like an ocean voyage or a military campaign... something which leaves off as soon as reached. It is not a public chore to be gotten over with. It is a way of life.
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In words are seen the state of mind and character and disposition of the speaker.
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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 omission of good is no less reprehensible than the commission of evil.
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That we may consult concerning others, and not others concerning us.
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Do not speak of your happiness to one less fortunate than yourself.
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As those persons who despair of ever being rich make little account of small expenses, thinking that little added to a little will never make any great sum.
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Rest is the sweet sauce of labor.
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Whenever anything is spoken against you that is not true, do not pass by or despise it because it is false; but forthwith examine yourself, and consider what you have said or done that may administer a just occasion of reproof.
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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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It is circumstance and proper measure that give an action its character, and make it either good or bad.
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Medicine to produce health must examine disease; and music, to create harmony must investigate discord.
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King Agis said, "The Lacedaemonians are not wont to ask how many, but where the enemy are."
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Time which diminishes all things increases understanding for the aging.
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The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.
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Dionysius the Elder, being asked whether he was at leisure, he replied, 'God forbid that it should ever befall me!'
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Nature and wisdom never are at strife.
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Vos vestros servate, meos mihi linquite mores You keep to your own ways, and leave mine to me.