Plutarch Quotes
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There is never the body of a man, how strong and stout soever, if it be troubled and inflamed, but will take more harm and offense by wine being poured into it.
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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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If we traverse the world, it is possible to find cities without walls, without letters, without kings, without wealth, without coin, without schools and theatres; but a city without a temple, or that practiseth not worship, prayer, and the like, no one ever saw.
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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.
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The pilot cannot mitigate the billows or calm the winds.
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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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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.
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He who reflects on another man's want of breeding, shows he wants it as much himself.
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Eurybiades lifting up his staff as if he were going to strike, Themistocles said, 'Strike, if you will; but hear'.
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He shall fare well who confronts circumstances aright.
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Know how to listen, and you will profit even from those who talk badly.
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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.'
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Like watermen, who look astern while they row the boat ahead.
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Using the proverb frequently in their mouths who enter upon dangerous and bold attempts, 'The die is cast,' he took the river.
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To find fault is easy; to do better may be difficult.
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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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νήπιος, ὃς τὰ ἕτοιμα λιπὼν ἀνέτοιμα διώκει
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So very difficult a matter is it to trace and find out the truth of anything by history.
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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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When the candles are out all women are fair.
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Demosthenes overcame and rendered more distinct his inarticulate and stammering pronunciation by speaking with pebbles in his mouth.
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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.''
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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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Demosthenes, when taunted by Pytheas that all his arguments "smelled of the lamp," replied, "Yes, but your lamp and mine, my friend, do not witness the same labours.