Plutarch Quotes
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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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Silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech.
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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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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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Oh, what a world full of pain we create, for a little taste upon the tongue.
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We ought not to treat living creatures like shoes or household belongings, which when worn with use we throw away.
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Time which diminishes all things increases understanding for the aging.
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Lamentation is the only musician that always, like a screech-owl, alights and sits on the roof of any angry man.
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I, for my own part, had much rather people should say of me that there neither is nor ever was such a man as Plutarch, than that they should say, 'Plutarch is an unsteady, fickle, froward, vindictive, and touchy fellow.'
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He said they that were serious in ridiculous matters would be ridiculous in serious affairs.
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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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Not by lamentations and mournful chants ought we to celebrate the funeral of a good man, but by hymns; for, ion ceasing to be numbered with mortals, he enters upon the heritage of a diviner life. Since he is gone where he feels no pain, let us not indulge in too much grief. The soul is incapable of death. And he, like a bird not long enough in his cage to become attached to it, is free to fly away to a purer air. . . . Since we cherish a trust like this, let our outward actions be in accord with it, and let us keep our hearts pure and our minds calm.
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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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The general himself ought to be such a one as can at the same time see both forward and backward.
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Wickedness frames the engines of her own torment. She is a wonderful artisan of a miserable life.
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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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Fate leads him who follows it, and drags him who resist.
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Go on, my friend, and fear nothing; you carry Cæsar and his fortunes in your boat.
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Cato requested old men not to add the disgrace of wickedness to old age, which was accompanied with many other evils.
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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.
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Socrates said, 'Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.'
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When Eudæmonidas heard a philosopher arguing that only a wise man can be a good general, 'This is a wonderful speech,' said he; 'but he that saith it never heard the sound of trumpets.'
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Anacharsis said a man's felicity consists not in the outward and visible favours and blessings of Fortune, but in the inward and unseen perfections and riches of the mind.
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Plato used to say to Xenocrates the philosopher, who was rough and morose, "Good Xenocrates, sacrifice to the Graces.