Plutarch Quotes
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Learn to be pleased with everything...because it could always be worse, but isn't!
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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.
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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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Lysander said that the law spoke too softly to be heard in such a noise of war.
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Fate, however, is to all appearance more unavoidable than unexpected.
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Plato used to say to Xenocrates the philosopher, who was rough and morose, "Good Xenocrates, sacrifice to the Graces.
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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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When one is transported by rage, it is best to observe attentively the effects on those who deliver themselves over to the same passion.
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Those are greedy of praise prove that they are poor in merit.
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Seeing the lightest and gayest purple was then most in fashion, he would always wear that which was the nearest black; and he would often go out of doors, after his morning meal, without either shoes or tunic; not that he sought vain-glory from such novelties, but he would accustom himself to be ashamed only of what deserves shame, and to despise all other sorts of disgrace.
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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.
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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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The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.
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τὸ μὲν ἁμαρτεῖν μηδὲν ἐν πράγμασι μεγάλοις μεῖζον ἢ κατ' ἄνθρωπόν ἐστι...
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Water and our necessary food are the only things that wise men must fight for.
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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.'
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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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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.
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'T is a wise saying, Drive on your own track.
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Rome was in the most dangerous inclination to change on account of the unequal distribution of wealth and property, those of highest rank and greatest spirit having impoverished themselves by shows, entertainments, ambition of offices, and sumptuous buildings, and the riches of the city having thus fallen into the hands of mean and low-born persons. So that there wanted but a slight impetus to set all in motion, it being in the power of every daring man to overturn a sickly commonwealth.
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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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We ought to regard books as we do sweetmeats, not wholly to aim at the pleasantest, but chiefly to respect the wholesomest; not forbidding either, but approving the latter most.
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Ease and speed in doing a thing do not give the work lasting solidity or exactness of beauty.
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Wickedness frames the engines of her own torment. She is a wonderful artisan of a miserable life.