Plutarch Quotes
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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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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."
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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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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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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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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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The new king [Alexander the Great] should perform acts so important and glorious as would make the poets and musicians of future ages labour and sweat to describe and celebrate him.
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In words are seen the state of mind and character and disposition of the speaker.
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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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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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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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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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The state of life is most happy where superfluities are not required and necessities are not wanting.
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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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We ought not to treat living creatures like shoes or household belongings, which when worn with use we throw away.
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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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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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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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Of all the disorders in the soul, envy is the only one no one confesses to.
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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.
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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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Euripides was wont to say, silence was an answer to a wise man; but we seem to have greater occasion for it in our dealing with fools and unreasonable persons; for men of breeding and sense will be satisfied with reason and fair words.