Plutarch Quotes
-
Lamentation is the only musician that always, like a screech-owl, alights and sits on the roof of any angry man.
-
Scilurus on his death-bed, being about to leave four-score sons surviving, offered a bundle of darts to each of them, and bade them break them. When all refused, drawing out one by one, he easily broke them,-thus teaching them that if they held together, they would continue strong; but if they fell out and were divided, they would become weak.
-
Education and study, and the favors of the muses, confer no greater benefit on those that seek them than these humanizing and civilizing lessons, which teach our natural qualities to submit to the limitations prescribed by reason, and to avoid the wildness of extremes.
-
Fortune had favoured me in this war that I feared, the rather, that some tempest would follow so favourable a gale.
-
Lycurgus the Lacedæmonian 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."
-
Of all the disorders in the soul, envy is the only one no one confesses to.
-
Demosthenes told Phocion, 'The Athenians will kill you some day when they once are in a rage.' 'And you,' said he, 'if they are once in their senses.'
-
When one is transported by rage, it is best to observe attentively the effects on those who deliver themselves over to the same passion.
-
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.
-
Both Empedocles and Heraclitus held it for a truth that man could not be altogether cleared from injustice in dealing with beasts as he now does.
-
Eat not thy heart; which forbids to afflict our souls, and waste them with vexatious cares.
-
As Athenodorus was taking his leave of Cæsar, 'Remember,' said he, 'Cæsar, whenever you are angry, to say or do nothing before you have repeated the four-and-twenty letters to yourself.'
-
So very difficult a matter is it to trace and find out the truth of anything by history.
-
Demosthenes overcame and rendered more distinct his inarticulate and stammering pronunciation by speaking with pebbles in his mouth.
-
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.
-
Eurybiades lifting up his staff as if he were going to strike, Themistocles said, 'Strike, if you will; but hear'.
-
Know how to listen, and you will profit even from those who talk badly.
-
He who reflects on another man's want of breeding, shows he wants it as much himself.
-
When he was wounded with an arrow in the ankle, and many ran to him that were wont to call him a god, he said smiling, 'That is blood, as you see, and not, as Homer saith, ‘such humour as distils from blessed gods.''
-
When the candles are out all women are fair.
-
Using the proverb frequently in their mouths who enter upon dangerous and bold attempts, 'The die is cast,' he took the river.
-
Like watermen, who look astern while they row the boat ahead.
-
To find fault is easy; to do better may be difficult.
-
Talkativeness has another plague attached to it, even curiosity; for praters wish to hear much that they may have much to say.