Plutarch Quotes

Statesmen are not only liable to give an account of what they say or do in public, but there is a busy inquiry made into their very meals, beds, marriages, and every other sportive or serious action.

Seeing the lightest and gayest purple was then most in fashion, he would always wear that which was the nearest black; and he would often go out of doors, after his morning meal, without either shoes or tunic; not that he sought vain-glory from such novelties, but he would accustom himself to be ashamed only of what deserves shame, and to despise all other sorts of disgrace.

The whole of life is but a moment of time. It is our duty, therefore to use it, not to misuse it.

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

Come back with your shield - or on it

The first man . . . ventured to call food and nourishment the parts that had a little before bellowed and cried, moved and lived. How could his eyes endure the slaughter when throats were slit and hides flayed and limbs torn from limb? How could his nose endure the stench? How was it that the pollution did not turn away his taste, which made contact with the sores of others and sucked juices and serums from mortal wounds?

Character is simply habit long continued.

It is no flattery to give a friend a due character; for commendation is as much the duty of a friend as reprehension.

Time which diminishes all things increases understanding for the aging.

Beauty is the flower of virtue.

Lying is a most disgraceful vice; it first despises God, and then fears men.

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.

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.

A healer of others, himself diseased.

A human body in no way resembles those that were born for ravenousness; it hath no hawk's bill, no sharp talon, no roughness of teeth, no such strength of stomach or heat of digestion, as can be sufficient to convert or alter such heavy and fleshy fare.

Courage stands halfway between cowardice and rashness, one of which is a lack, the other an excess of courage.

The giving of riches and honors to a wicked man is like giving strong wine to him that hath a fever.

The first evil those who are prone to talk suffer, is that they hear nothing.

Nothing can produce so great a serenity of life as a mind free from guilt and kept untainted, not only from actions, but purposes that are wicked. By this means the soul will be not only unpolluted but also undisturbed. The fountain will run clear and unsullied.

The measure of a man is the way he bears up under misfortune.

A Spartan woman, as she handed her son his shield, exhorted him saying, "As a warrior of Sparta come back with your shield or on it."

No beast is more savage than man when possessed with power answerable to his rage.

Real excellence, indeed, is most recognized when most openly looked into.

Politics is not like an ocean voyage or a military campaign... something which leaves off as soon as reached. It is not a public chore to be gotten over with. It is a way of life.

Foreign lady once remarked to the wife of a Spartan commander that the women of Sparta were the only women in the world who could rule men. "We are the only women who raise men," the Spartan lady replied.

To be ignorant of the lives of the most celebrated men of antiquity is to continue in a state of childhood all our days.

What sort of tree is there which will not, if neglected, grow crooked and unfruitful; what but Will, if rightly ordered, prove productive and bring its fruit to maturity? What strength of body is there which will not lose its vigor and fall to decay by laziness, nice usage, and debauchery?

Forgetfulness transforms every occurrence into a non-occurrence.

Apothegms are the most infallible mirror to represent a man truly what he is.

It is a high distinction for a homely woman to be loved for her character rather than for beauty.

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.

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

The belly has no ears.

But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy.

When I myself had twice or thrice made a resolute resistance unto anger, the like befell me that did the Thebans; who, having once foiled the Lacedaemonians (who before that time had held themselves invincible), never after lost so much as one battle which they fought against them.

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.

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.

When men are arrived at the goal, they should not turn back.

It were better to have no opinion of God at all than such a one as is unworthy of him; for the one is only belief - the other contempt.

Nature and wisdom never are at strife.

Rest is the sweet sauce of labor.

Friendship is the most pleasant of all things, and nothing more glads the heart of man.

It is a hard matter, my fellow citizens, to argue with the belly, since it has no ears.

Water and our necessary food are the only things that wise men must fight for.

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

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.

Antisthenes says that in a certain faraway land the cold is so intense that words freeze as soon as they are uttered, and after some time then thaw and become audible, so that words spoken in winter go unheard until the next summer.

Evidence of trust begets trust, and love is reciprocated by love.