Plutarch Quotes

He who first called money the sinews of the state seems to have said this with special reference to war.

Fortune had favoured me in this war that I feared, the rather, that some tempest would follow so favourable a gale.

The present offers itself to our touch for only an instant of time and then eludes the senses.

Instead of using medicine, better fast today.

Knowledge of divine things for the most part, as Heraclitus says, is lost to us by incredulity.

Let us not wonder if something happens which never was before, or if something doth not appear among us with which the ancients were acquainted.

The authors of great evils know best how to remove them.

Xenophon says that there is no sound more pleasing than one's own praises.

Lysander said that the law spoke too softly to be heard in such a noise of war.

Note that the eating of flesh is not only physically against nature, but it also makes us spiritually coarse and gross by reason of satiety and surfeit.

Memory: what wonders it performs in preserving and storing up things gone by - or rather, things that are

Rather I fear on the contrary that while we banish painful thoughts we may banish memory as well.

Custom is almost a second nature.

I confess myself the greatest coward in the world, for I dare not do an ill thing.

Nature without learning is blind, learning apart from nature is fractional, and practice in the absence of both is aimless.

Speech is like cloth of Arras opened and put abroad, whereby the imagery doth appear in figure; whereas in thoughts they lie but as packs.

He who busies himself in mean occupations, produces in the very pains he takes about things of little or no use, an evidence against himself of his negligence and indisposition to what is really good

What is bigger than an elephant? But this also is become man's plaything, and a spectacle at public solemnities; and it learns to skip, dance, and kneel

Extraordinary rains pretty generally fall after great battles.

Valour, however unfortunate, commands great respect even from enemies: but the Romans despise cowardice, even though it be prosperous.

He shall fare well who confronts circumstances aright.

Friendship requires a steady, constant, and unchangeable character, a person that is uniform in his intimacy.

Man is neither by birth nor disposition a savage, nor of unsocial habits, but only becomes so by indulging in vices contrary to his nature.

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.

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."

Cicero called Aristotle a river of flowing gold, and said of Plato's Dialogues, that if Jupiter were to speak, it would be in language like theirs.

He who owns a hundred sheep must fight with fifty wolves

Even a nod from a person who is esteemed is of more force than a thousand arguments or studied sentences from others.

Of all the disorders in the soul, envy is the only one no one confesses to.

When Demosthenes was asked what were the three most important aspects of oratory, he answered, 'Action, Action, Action.'

So long as he was personally present, [Alcibiades] had the perfect mastery of his political adversaries; calumny only succeeded in his absence.

For it was not so much that by means of words I came to a complete understanding of things, as that from things I somehow had an experience which enabled me to follow the meaning of words.

Being summoned by the Athenians out of Sicily to plead for his life, Alcibiades absconded, saying that that criminal was a fool who studied a defence when he might fly for it.

The soul of man... is a portion or a copy of the soul of the Universe and is joined together on principles and in proportions corresponding to those which govern the Universe.

There is no stronger test of a person's character than power and authority, exciting as they do every passion, and discovering every latent vice.

Pythagoras, when he was asked what time was, answered that it was the soul of this world.

Wickedness frames the engines of her own torment. She is a wonderful artisan of a miserable life.

It is not reasonable that he who does not shoot should hit the mark, nor that he who does not stand fast at his post should win the day, or that the helpless man should succeed or the coward prosper.

Philosophy is an act of living.

Character is inured habit.

Poverty is not dishonorable in itself, but only when it comes from idleness, intemperance, extravagance, and folly.

A remorseful change of mind renders even a noble action base, whereas the determination which is grounded on knowledge and reason cannot change even if its actions fail.

Pittacus said, "Every one of you hath his particular plague, and my wife is mine; and he is very happy who hath this only".

Nor let us part with justice, like a cheap and common thing, for a small and trifling price.

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.

The process may seem strange and yet it is very true. I did not so much gain the knowledge of things by the words, as words by the experience I had of things.

Epaminondas is reported wittily to have said of a good man that died about the time of the battle of Leuctra, "How came he to have so much leisure as to die, when there was so much stirring?

For to err in opinion, though it be not the part of wise men, is at least human.

Immoderate grief is selfish, harmful, brings no advantage to either the mourner or the mourned, and dishonors the dead.

The generous mind adds dignity to every act, and nothing misbecomes it.