Plutarch Quotes (116 Quotes)

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

The continuance and frequent fits of anger produce in the soul a propensity to be angry which ofttimes ends in choler, bitterness, and morosity, when the mid becomes ulcerated, peevish, and querulous, and is wounded by the least occurrence.

Water continually dropping will wear hard rocks hollow.

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

Character is long-standing habit.

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

Pompey bade Sylla recollect that more worshipped the rising than the setting sun.

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

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,

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

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

He is a fool who leaves things close at hand to follow what is out of reach.

Socrates said, 'Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.'

Paulus Aemilius, on taking command of the forces in Macedonia, and finding them talkative and impertinently busy, as though they were all commanders, issued out his orders that they should have only ready hands and keen swords, and leave the rest to

This excerpt is presented as reproduced by Copernicus in the preface to De Revolutionibus 'Some think that the earth remains at rest. But Philolaus the Pythagorean believes that, like the sun and moon, it revolves around the fire in an oblique circle. Heraclides of Pontus and Ecphantus the Pythagorean make the earth move, not in a progressive motion, but like a wheel in rotation from west to east around its own center.'

Distressed valor challenges great respect, even from an enemy.

Philosophy is an act of living.

They named it Ovation from the Latin ovis A Sheep.

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

Talkative people who wish to be loved are hated when they desire to please, they bore when they think they are admired, they are laughed at they injure their friends, benefit their enemies, and ruin themselves.

The great god Pan is dead.

There is no doubt that the real destroyer of the liberties of any people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and largess.

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

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

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

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

Thamus ... uttered with a loud voice his message, 'The great Pan is dead.'

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

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

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

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

Objects which are usually the motives of our travels by land and by sea are often overlooked and neglected if they lie under our eye. We put off from time to time going and seeing what we know we have an opportunity of seeing when we please.

As Caesar was at supper the discourse was of death - which sort was the best, That, said he, which is unexpected

In human life there is constant change of fortune And it is unreasonable to expect an exemption from the common fate. Life itself decays, and all things are daily changing.

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.

Those who aim at great deeds must also suffer greatly.

It is wise to be silent when occasion requires, and better than to speak, though never so well.

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.

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

The richest soil, if cultivated, produces the rankest weeds

Neither blame or praise yourself.

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

Nothing is cheap which is superfluous, for what one does not need, is dear at a penny.

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

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

The Heavens seemed to men to fulfill the functions of father, and the Earth of mother. The former impregnated the earth with its fertilizing rains, and the earth, receiving them, became fruitful and brought forth.

Nor is it always in the most distinguished achievements that men's virtues or vices may be best discovered but very often an action of small note, a short saying, or a jest, shall distinguish a person's real character more than the greatest sieges, or the most important battle.

Where the lions skin will not reach, you must patch it out with the foxs.

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.

It is an observation no less just than common, that there is no stronger test of a man's real character than power and authority, exciting as they do every passion, and discovering every latent vice.