Plutarch Quotes
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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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Plato used to say to Xenocrates the philosopher, who was rough and morose, "Good Xenocrates, sacrifice to the Graces.
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Learn to be pleased with everything...because it could always be worse, but isn't!
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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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Those are greedy of praise prove that they are poor in merit.
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In words are seen the state of mind and character and disposition of the speaker.
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Go on, my friend, and fear nothing; you carry Cæsar and his fortunes in your boat.
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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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It is circumstance and proper measure that give an action its character, and make it either good or bad.
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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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Water and our necessary food are the only things that wise men must fight for.
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Character is simply habit long continued.
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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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Lycurgus being asked why he, who in other respects appeared to be so zealous for the equal rights of men, did not make his government democratical rather than oligarchical, "Go you," replied the legislator, "and try a democracy in your own house.
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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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What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.
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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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The man who first brought ruin upon the Roman people was he who pampered them by largesses and amusements.
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What most of all enables a man to serve the public is not wealth, but content and independence; which, requiring no superfluity at home, distracts not the mind from the common good.
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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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Custom is almost a second nature.
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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.