Top 390 Quotes & Sayings by Plutarch

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a Greek philosopher Plutarch.

Last updated on September 16, 2024.

Plutarch was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for his Parallel Lives, a series of biographies of illustrious Greeks and Romans, and Moralia, a collection of essays and speeches. Upon becoming a Roman citizen, he was possibly named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus.

Greek - Philosopher | 46 - 120

Source: Wikipedia

Silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech.

Plutarch

Those who aim at great deeds must also suffer greatly.

Plutarch

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.

Plutarch

Fate leads him who follows it, and drags him who resist.

Plutarch

The very spring and root of honesty and virtue lie in good education.

Plutarch

Neither blame or praise yourself.

Plutarch

Nothing is harder to direct than a man in prosperity; nothing more easily managed that one is adversity.

Plutarch

Character is simply habit long continued.

Plutarch

When the strong box contains no more both friends and flatterers shun the door.

Plutarch

A few vices are sufficient to darken many virtues.

Plutarch

I would rather excel in the knowledge of what is excellent, than in the extent of my power and possessions.

Plutarch

Character is long-standing habit.

Plutarch

To find fault is easy; to do better may be difficult.

Plutarch

Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks.

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

Courage consists not in hazarding without fear; but being resolutely minded in a just cause.

Plutarch

It is indeed a desirable thing to be well-descended, but the glory belongs to our ancestors.

Plutarch

Prosperity is no just scale; adversity is the only balance to weigh friends.

Plutarch

I don't need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod; my shadow does that much better.

Plutarch

Know how to listen, and you will profit even from those who talk badly.

Plutarch

In words are seen the state of mind and character and disposition of the speaker.

Plutarch

No man ever wetted clay and then left it, as if there would be bricks by chance and fortune.

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.

Plutarch

Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little.

Plutarch

To make no mistakes is not in the power of man; but from their errors and mistakes the wise and good learn wisdom for the future.

Plutarch

We ought not to treat living creatures like shoes or household belongings, which when worn with use we throw away.

Plutarch

The wildest colts make the best horses.

Plutarch

The omission of good is no less reprehensible than the commission of evil.

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

All men whilst they are awake are in one common world: but each of them, when he is asleep, is in a world of his own.

Plutarch

The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.

Plutarch

Medicine to produce health must examine disease; and music, to create harmony must investigate discord.

Plutarch

It is part of a good man to do great and noble deeds, though he risk everything.

Plutarch

The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.

Plutarch

What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

Plutarch

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.

Plutarch

Moral habits, induced by public practices, are far quicker in making their way into men's private lives, than the failings and faults of individuals are in infecting the city at large.

Plutarch

Do not speak of your happiness to one less fortunate than yourself.

Plutarch

If you hate your enemies, you will contract such a vicious habit of mind that it will break out upon those who are your friends, or those who are indifferent to you.

Plutarch

The drop hollows out the stone not by strength, but by constant falling.

Plutarch

For the wise man, every day is a festival.

Plutarch

Knavery is the best defense against a knave.

Plutarch

The poor go to war, to fight and die for the delights, riches, and superfluities of others.

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

It is a true proverb, that if you live with a lame man, you will learn to limp.

Plutarch

Time is the wisest of all counselors.

Plutarch

The richest soil, if uncultivated, produces the rankest weeds.

Plutarch

God is the brave man's hope, and not the coward's excuse.

Plutarch

Barba non facit philosophum

Plutarch

A fool cannot hold his tongue.

Plutarch

Philosophy finds talkativeness a disease very difficult and hard to cure. For its remedy, conversation, requires hearers: but talkative people hear nobody, for they are ever prating. And the first evil this inability to keep silence produces is an inability to listen.

Plutarch

Instead of using medicine, better fast today.

Plutarch

Our senses through ignorance of Reality, falsely tell us that what appears to be, is. FEAR = False Evidence Appearing Real

Plutarch

There are two sentences inscribed upon the Ancient oracle... "Know thyself" and "Nothing too much"; and upon these all other precepts depend.

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

Learn to be pleased with everything...because it could always be worse, but isn't!

Plutarch

The abuse of buying and selling votes crept in and money began to play an important part in determining elections. Later on, this process of corruption spread to the law courts. And then to the army, and finally the Republic was subjected to the rule of emperors

Plutarch

When Demaratus was asked whether he held his tongue because he was a fool or for want of words, he replied, "A fool cannot hold his tongue.

Plutarch

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

Plutarch