Plutarch Quotes
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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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Sometimes small incidents, rather than glorious exploits, give us the best evidence of character. So, as portrait painters are more exact in doing the face, where the character is revealed, than the rest of the body, I must be allowed to give my more particular attention to the marks of the souls of men.
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In words are seen the state of mind and character and disposition of the speaker.
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When the candles are out all women are fair.
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To Harmodius, descended from the ancient Harmodius, when he reviled Iphicrates a shoemaker's son for his mean birth, 'My nobility,' said he, 'begins in me, but yours ends in you.'
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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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For many, as Cranton tells us, and those very wise men, not now but long ago, have deplored the condition of human nature, esteeming life a punishment, and to be born a man the highest pitch of calamity; this, Aristotle tells us, Silenus declared when he was brought captive to Midas.
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It is no disgrace not to be able to do everything; but to undertake, or pretend to do, what you are not made for, is not only shameful, but extremely troublesome and vexatious.
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The saying of old Antigonus, who when he was to fight at Andros, and one told him, 'The enemy's ships are more than ours,' replied, 'For how many then wilt thou reckon me?'
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Fortune had favoured me in this war that I feared, the rather, that some tempest would follow so favourable a gale.
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Talkativeness has another plague attached to it, even curiosity; for praters wish to hear much that they may have much to say.
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Concerning the dead nothing but good shall be spoken. [Lat., De mortuis nil nisi bonum.]
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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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I had rather men should ask why my statue is not set up, than why it is.
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Let a prince be guarded with soldiers, attended by councillors, and shut up in forts; yet if his thoughts disturb him, he is miserable.
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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.'
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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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As in the case of painters, who have undertaken to give us a beautiful and graceful figure, which may have some slight blemishes, we do not wish then to pass over such blemishes altogether, nor yet to mark them too prominently. The one would spoil the beauty, and the other destroy the likeness of the picture.
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The state of life is most happy where superfluities are not required and necessities are not wanting.
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Thus they let their anger and fury take from them the sense of humanity, and demonstrated that no beast is more savage than man when possessed with power answerable to his rage.
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It is circumstance and proper measure that give an action its character, and make it either good or bad.
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Learn to be pleased with everything, with wealth so far as it makes us beneficial to others; with poverty, for not having much to care for; and with obscurity, for being unenvied.
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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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I confess myself the greatest coward in the world, for I dare not do an ill thing.