Plutarch Quotes
-
For the correct analogy for the mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting.
-
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.'
-
He is a fool who lets slip a bird in the hand for a bird in the bush.
-
Agesilaus being invited once to hear a man who admirably imitated the nightingale, he declined, saying he had heard the nightingale itself.
-
Time which diminishes all things increases understanding for the aging.
-
I confess myself the greatest coward in the world, for I dare not do an ill thing.
-
Proper listening is the foundation of proper living.
-
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.'
-
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.'
-
Lying is a most disgraceful vice; it first despises God, and then fears men.
-
King Agis said, "The Lacedaemonians are not wont to ask how many, but where the enemy are."
-
But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy.
-
Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little.
-
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.
-
Learn to be pleased with everything...because it could always be worse, but isn't!
-
Water and our necessary food are the only things that wise men must fight for.
-
Go on, my friend, and fear nothing; you carry Cæsar and his fortunes in your boat.
-
He said that in his whole life he most repented of three things: one was that he had trusted a secret to a woman; another, that he went by water when he might have gone by land; the third, that he had remained one whole day without doing any business of moment.
-
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.
-
Fate leads him who follows it, and drags him who resist.
-
Men who marry wives very much superior to themselves are not so truly husbands to their wives as they are unawares made slaves to their position.
-
Nothing is cheap which is superfluous, for what one does not need, is dear at a penny.
-
The Epicureans, according to whom animals had no creation, doe suppose that by mutation of one into another, they were first made; for they are the substantial part of the world; like as Anaxagoras and Euripides affirme in these tearmes: nothing dieth, but in changing as they doe one for another they show sundry formes.
-
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.