Plutarch Quotes
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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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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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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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Fate, however, is to all appearance more unavoidable than unexpected.
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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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That we may consult concerning others, and not others concerning us.
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When asked why he parted with his wife, Cæsar replied, 'I wished my wife to be not so much as suspected.'
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Medicine to produce health must examine disease; and music, to create harmony must investigate discord.
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Custom is almost a second nature.
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I don't need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod; my shadow does that much better.
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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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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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Among real friends there is no rivalry or jealousy of one another, but they are satisfied and contented alike whether they are equal or one of them is superior.
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τὸ μὲν ἁμαρτεῖν μηδὲν ἐν πράγμασι μεγάλοις μεῖζον ἢ κατ' ἄνθρωπόν ἐστι...
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Those are greedy of praise prove that they are poor in merit.
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They fought indeed and were slain, but it was to maintain the luxury and the wealth of other men.
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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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Prosperity has this property, it puffs up narrow Souls, makes them imagine themselves high and mighty, and look down upon the World with Contempt; but a truly noble and resolved Spirit appears greatest in Distress, and then becomes more bright and conspicuous.
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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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While Leonidas was preparing to make his stand, a Persian envoy arrived. The envoy explained to Leonidas the futility of trying to resist the advance of the Great King's army and demanded that the Greeks lay down their arms and submit to the might of Persia. Leonidas laconically told Xerxes, "Come and get them.
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Empire may be gained by gold, not gold by empire. It used, indeed, to be a proverb that 'It is not Philip, but Philip's gold that takes the cities of Greece.'
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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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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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We ought to give our friend pain if it will benefit him, but not to the extent of breaking off our friendship; but just as we make use of some biting medicine that will save and preserve the life of the patient. And so the friend, like a musician, in bringing about an improvement to what is good and expedient, sometimes slackens the chords, sometimes tightens them, and is often pleasant, but always useful.