Top 390 Quotes & Sayings by Plutarch - Page 2

Vultures are the most righteous of birds: they do not attack even the smallest living creature.

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

A Roman divorced from his wife, being highly blamed by his friends, who demanded, "Was she not chaste? Was she not fair? Was she not fruitful?" holding out his shoe, asked them whether it was not new and well made. "Yet," added he, "none of you can tell where it pinches me.''

It was not important how many enemies there are, but where the enemy is

When Anaxagoras was told of the death of his son, he only said, "I knew he was mortal." So we in all casualties of life should say "I knew my riches were uncertain, that my friend was but a man." Such considerations would soon pacify us, because all our troubles proceed from their being unexpected.

Either is both, and Both is neither.

Proper listening is the foundation of proper living.

We are more sensible of what is done against custom than against nature.

Socrates said he was not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.

Wisdom is neither gold, nor silver, nor fame, nor wealth, nor health, nor strength, nor beauty.

The worship most acceptable to God comes from a thankful and cheerful heart.

A healer of others, himself diseased.

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

The measure of a man's life is the well spending of it, and not the length.

The talkative listen to no one, for they are ever speaking. And the first evil that attends those who know not to be silent is that they hear nothing.

As bees extract honey from thyme, the strongest and driest of herbs, so sensible men often get advantage and profit from the most awkward circumstances.

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

For the mind does not require filling like a bottle, but rather, like wood, it only requires kindling to create in it an impulse to think independently and an ardent desire for the truth.

Water continually dropping will wear hard rocks hollow.

It is not the most distinguished achievements that men's virtues or vices may be best discovered; but very often an action of small note. An casual remark or joke shall distinguish a person's real character more than the greatest sieges, or the most important battles.

To please the many is to displease the wise.

Abstruse questions must have abstruse answers.

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.

Silence is an answer to a wise man.

Nature and wisdom never are at strife.

Reason speaks and feeling bites

The whole life of man is but a point of time; let us enjoy it.

It is a thing of no great difficulty to raise objections against another man's oration, it is a very easy matter; but to produce a better in it's place is a work extremely troublesome.

Words will build no walls.

To fail to do good is as bad as doing harm.

When another is asked a question, take special care not to interrupt to answer it yourself.

Poverty is dishonorable, not in itself, but when it is a proof of laziness, intemperance, luxury, and carelessness; whereas in a person that is temperate, industrious, just and valiant, and who uses all his virtues for the public good, it shows a great and lofty mind.

Remember what Simonides said, that he never repented that he had held his tongue, but often that he had spoken.

He who cheats with an oath acknowledges that he is afraid of his enemy, but that he thinks little of God.

Choose what is best, and habit will make it pleasant and easy.

Anger turns the mind out of doors and bolts the entrance.

The state of life is most happy where superfluities are not required and necessities are not wanting.

Oh, what a world full of pain we create, for a little taste upon the tongue.

The flatterer's object is to please in everything he does; whereas the true friend always does what is right, and so often gives pleasure, often pain, not wishing the latter, but not shunning it either, if he deems it best.

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.

Cato used to assert that wise men profited more by fools than fools by wise men; for that wise men avoided the faults of fools, but that fools would not imitate the good examples of wise men.

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.

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.

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

It is the admirer of himself, and not the admirer of virtue, that thinks himself superior to others.

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.

Beauty is the flower of virtue.

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.

It is not histories I am writing, but lives; and in the most glorious deeds there is not always an indication of virtue or vice, indeed a small thing like a phrase or a jest often makes a greater revelation of a character than battles where thousands die.

Wise men are able to make a fitting use even of their enmities.

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

Wickedness is a wonderfully diligent architect of misery, of shame, accompanied with terror, and commotion, and remorse, and endless perturbation.

He who reflects on another man's want of breeding, shows he wants it as much himself

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.

Time which diminishes all things increases understanding for the aging.

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

Vos vestros servate, meos mihi linquite mores You keep to your own ways, and leave mine to me

I see the cure is not worth the pain.

Philosophy is an act of living.

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.