Plutarch Quotes

A healer of others, himself diseased. ~ Plutarch

When Eudaemonidas heard a philosopher arguing that only a wise man can be a good general, "This is a wonderful speech," said he; "but he that saith it never heard the sound of trumpets. ~ Plutarch

Like every man who appears at an epoch which is historical and rendered famous by his works, Jesus Christ has a history, a history which the church and the world possess, and which, surrounded by countless memorials, has at least the same authenticity as any other history formed in the same countries, amidst the same peoples and in the same times. As, then, if I would study the lives of Brutus and Cassius, I should calmly open Plutarch, I open the Gospel to study Jesus Christ, and I do so with the same composure. ~ Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

It is no great wonder if in long process of time, while fortune takes her course hither and thither, numerous coincidences should spontaneously occur. If the number and variety of subjects to be wrought upon be infinite, it is all the more easy for fortune, with such an abundance of material, to effect this similarity of results. ~ Plutarch

To do an evil action is base; to do a good action without incurring danger is common enough; but it is the part of a good man to do great and noble deeds, though he risks every thing. ~ Plutarch

The man who first brought ruin upon the Roman people was he who pampered them by largesses and amusements. ~ Plutarch

The truly pious must negotiate a difficult course between the precipice of godlessness and the marsh of superstition. ~ Plutarch

Spintharus, speaking in commendation of Epaminondas, says he scarce ever met with any man who knew more and spoke less. ~ Plutarch

A traveller at Sparta, standing long upon one leg, said to a Lacedaemonian, "I do not believe you can do as much." "True," said he, "but every goose can." ~ Plutarch

Grief is like a physical pain which must be allowed to subside somewhat on its own before medical treatment is applied. ~ Plutarch

By the study of their biographies, we receive each man as a guest into our minds, and we seem to understand their character as the result of a personal acquaintance, because we have obtained from their acts the best and most important means of forming an opinion about them. "What greater pleasure could'st thou gain than this?" What more valuable for the elevation of our own character? ~ Plutarch

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." ~ Plutarch

Custom is almost a second nature. ~ Plutarch

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.' ~ Plutarch

Plutarch gave her nine languages, including Hebrew and Troglodyte, an Ethiopian tongue that - if Herodotus can be believed - was unlike that of any other people; it sounds like the screeching of bats. ~ Stacy Schiff

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

The most glorious exploits do not always furnish us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men. ~ Plutarch

Instead of using medicine, better fast today. ~ Plutarch

People often seem surprised that I choose to write science fiction and fantasy - I think they expect a history professor to write historical fiction, or literary fiction, associating academia with the kinds of novels that academic lit critics prefer. But I feel that speculative fiction, especially science fiction and fantasy, is a lot more like the pre-modern literature I spend most of my time studying than most modern literature is. Ursula Le Guin has described speculative fiction authors as "realists of a larger reality" because we imagine other ways of being, alternatives to how people live now, different worlds, and raise questions about hope and change and possibilities that different worlds contain.

....

Writing for a more distant audience, authors tended to be speculative, using exotic perspectives, fantastic creatures, imaginary lands, allegories, prophecies, stories within stories, techniques which, like science fiction and fantasy, use alternatives rather than one reality in order to ask questions, not about the way things are, but about plural ways things have been and could be. Such works have an empathy across time, expecting and welcoming an audience as alien as the other worlds that they describe. When I read Voltaire responding to Francis Bacon, responding to Petrarch, responding to Boethius, responding to Seneca, responding to Plutarch, I want to respond to them too, to pass it on. So it makes sense to me to answer in the genre people ha ~ Ada Palmer

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. ~ Plutarch

Grief is natural; the absence of all feeling is undesirable, but moderation in grief should be observed, as in the face of all good or evil. ~ Plutarch

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. ~ Plutarch

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. ~ Plutarch

It starts at midnight. ~ Suzanne Collins

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

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. ~ Plutarch

Plutarch taught me high thoughts; he elevated me above the wretched sphere of my own reflections, to admire and love the heroes of past ages. Many things I read surpassed my understanding and experience. I had a very confused knowledge of kingdoms, wide extents of country, mighty rivers, and boundless seas. This book developed new and mightier scenes of action. I read of men concerned in public affairs, governing or massacring their species. I felt the greatest ardour for virtue rise within me, and abhorrence for vice. ~ Mary Shelley

He who least likes courting favour, ought also least to think of resenting neglect; to feel wounded at being refused a distinction can only arise from an overweening appetite to have it. ~ Plutarch

Plutarch has a fine expression, with regard to some woman of learning, humility, and virtue;
that her ornaments were such as might be purchased without money, and would render any woman's life both glorious and happy. ~ Laurence Sterne

But rituals turn us all into fucking idiots. Like those birds that sleep with their heads facing backwards because their ancestors slept with their heads under their wings. Plutarch says carrying new wives across thresholds is stupid because we don't remember that it refers to the rape of the Sabine women - and that's fucking Plutarch, two thousand years ago. We still draw the Reaper with a scythe. We should draw him driving a John Deere for Archer Daniels Midland. ~ Josh Bazell

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

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

Ease and speed in doing a thing do not give the work lasting solidity or exactness of beauty. ~ Plutarch

A soldier told Pelopidas, "We are fallen among the enemies." Said he, "How are we fallen among them more than they among us? ~ Plutarch

Whenever anything is spoken against you that is not true, do not pass by or despise it because it is false; but forthwith examine yourself, and consider what you have said or done that may administer a just occasion of reproof. ~ Plutarch

Authority and place demonstrate and try the tempers of men, by moving every passion and discovering every frailty. ~ Plutarch

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. ~ Plutarch

We ought to regard books as we do sweetmeats, not wholly to aim at the pleasantest, but chiefly to respect the wholesomest; not forbidding either, but approving the latter most. ~ Plutarch

The whole like of a man is but a point of time; let us enjoy it. ~ Plutarch

Poverty is never dishonourable in itself, but only when it is a mark of sloth, intemperance, extravagance, or thoughtlessness. When, on the other hand, it is the handmaid of a sober, industrious, righteous, and brave man, who devotes all his powers to the service of the people, it is the sign of a lofty spirit that harbours no mean thoughts ~ Plutarch

Good fortune will elevate even petty minds, and give them the appearance of a certain greatness and stateliness, as from their high place they look down upon the world; but the truly noble and resolved spirit raises itself, and becomes more conspicuous in times of disaster and ill fortune. ~ Plutarch

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

Had I a careful and pleasant companion that should show me my angry face in a glass, I should not at all take it ill; to behold man's self so unnaturally disguised and dishonored will conduce not a little to the impeachment of anger. ~ Plutarch

Time which diminishes all things increases understanding for the aging. ~ Plutarch

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. ~ Plutarch

As in the case of painters, who have undertaken to give us a beautiful and graceful figure, which may have some slight blemishes, we do not wish then to pass over such blemishes altogether, nor yet to mark them too prominently. The one would spoil the beauty, and the other destroy the likeness of the picture. ~ Plutarch

Moral good is a practical stimulus; it is no sooner seen than it inspires an impulse to practice. ~ Plutarch

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

Lycurgus was of opinion that ornaments were so far from advantaging them in their counsels, that they were rather an hindrance, by diverting their attention from the business before them to statues and pictures, and roofs curiously fretted, the usual embellishments of such places amongst the other Greeks. ~ Plutarch

So also it is good not always to make a friend of the person who is expert in twining himself around us; but, after testing them, to attach ourselves to those who are worthy of our affection and likely to be serviceable to us. ~ Plutarch

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

It is the usual consolation of the envious, if they cannot maintain their superiority, to represent those by whom they are surpassed as inferior to some one else. ~ Plutarch

Whenever Alexander heard Philip had taken any town of importance, or won any signal victory, instead of rejoicing at it altogether, he would tell his companions that his father would anticipate everything, and leave him and them no opportunities of performing great and illustrious actions. ~ Plutarch

He (Cato) never gave his opinion in the Senate upon any other point whatever, without adding these words, "And, in my opinion Carthage should be destroyed." ["Delenda est Carthago."] ~ Plutarch

A better-constituted boy would certainly have profited under my intelligent tutors, with their scientific apparatus; and would, doubtless, have found the phenomena of electricity and magnetism as fascinating as I was, every Thursday, assured they were. As it was, I could have paired off, for ignorance of whatever was taught me, with the worst Latin scholar that was ever turned out of a classical academy. I read Plutarch, and Shakespeare, and Don Quixote by the sly, and supplied myself in that way with wandering thoughts, while my tutor was assuring me that "an improved man, as distinguished from an ignorant one, was a man who knew the reason why water ran downhill." I had no desire to be this improved man; I was glad of the running water; I could watch it and listen to it gurgling among the pebbles and bathing the bright green water-plants, by the hour together. I did not want to know why it ran; I had perfect confidence that there were good reasons for what was so very beautiful. ("The Lifted Veil") ~ George Eliot

I slept as the person in Plutarch that ran from Marathon to Athens without a pause would have slept if he had not fallen dead, the creature. ~ Patrick O'Brian

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. ~ Plutarch

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

The fact is that men who know nothing of decency in their own lives are only too ready to launch foul slanders against their betters and to offer them up as victims to the evil deity of popular envy. ~ Plutarch

Come and take them ~ Plutarch

Concerning the dead nothing but good shall be spoken.
[Lat., De mortuis nil nisi bonum.] ~ Plutarch

take care, in reading the writings of philosophers or hearing their speeches, that you do not attend to words more than things, nor get attracted more by what is difficult and curious than by what is serviceable and solid and useful. ~ Plutarch

Lying is a disgraceful vice, and one that Plutarch paints in most disgraceful colors, when he says that it is "affording testimony that one first despises God, and then fears men." It is not possible more happily to describe its horrible, disgusting, and abandoned nature; for can we imagine anything more vile than to be cowards with regard to men, and brave with regard to God. ~ Michel De Montaigne

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

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

Anaximander says that men were first produced in fishes, and when they were grown up and able to help themselves were thrown up, and so lived upon the land. ~ Plutarch

When Plutarch says that a city might sooner subsist without a geographical site than without belief in the gods, his words would not have appeared strange to his countrymen at any time.'] ~ Michael Oakeshott

In some strata of Greek and Roman society the engineer was actually denigrated, higher esteem being accorded to poets, playwrights and sculptors. According to Plutarch, Archimedes was praised for refusing to contaminate his theoretical and mathematical science with practical applications, although under extreme pressure at the siege of Syracuse in Sicily he did design practical machinery. ~ Stephanie Dalley

The usual disease of princes, grasping covetousness, had made them suspicious and quarrelsome neighbors. ~ Plutarch

Such contentedness and change of view in regard to every kind of life does the infusion of reason bring about. When Alexander heard from Anaxarchus of the infinite number of worlds, he wept, and when his friends asked him what was the matter, he replied, Is it not a matter for tears that, when the number of worlds is infinite, I have not conquered one? ~ Plutarch

He shall fare well who confronts circumstances aright. ~ Plutarch

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

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. ~ 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

Nor is drunkenness censured for anything so much as its intemperate and endless talk. ~ Plutarch

To the Dolphin alone, beyond all other, nature has granted what the best philosophers seek: friendship for no advantage ~ Plutarch

Are you preparing for another war, Plutarch?" I ask.
"Oh, not now. Now we're in a sweet period where everyone agrees that our recent horrors should never be repeated," he says. "But collective thinking is usually short-lived. We're fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction. Although who knows? Maybe this will be it, Katniss. ~ Suzanne Collins

But a man cannot by writing a bill of divorce to his vice get rid of all trouble at once, and enjoy tranquillity by living apart. ~ Plutarch

For it is not Histories that I am writing, but Lives; and in the most illustrious deeds there is not always a manifestation of virtue or vice, nay, a slight thing like a phrase or a jest often makes a greater revelation of character than battles where thousands fall, or the greatest armaments, or sieges of cities. ~ Plutarch

Character is long-standing habit. ~ Plutarch

It is a difficult task, O citizens, to make speeches to the belly, which has no ears. ~ Plutarch

Lycurgus being asked why he, who in other respects appeared to be so zealous for the equal rights of men, did not make his government democratical rather than oligarchical, "Go you," replied the legislator, "and try a democracy in your own house. ~ Plutarch

It's impossible to be the Mockingjay. Impossible to complete even this one sentence. Because now I know that everything I say will be directly taken out on Peeta. Result in his torture. But not his death, no, nothing so merciful as that. Snow will ensure that his life is much more worse than death.

"Cut," I hear Cressida say quietly.

"What's wrong with her?" Plutarch says under his breath.

"She's figured out how Snow's using Peeta," says Finnick.

There's something like a collective sigh of regret from that semicircle of people spread out before me. Because I know this now. Because there will never be a way for me to not know this again. Because, beyond the military disadvantage losing a entails, I am broken.

Several sets of arms would embrace me. But in the end, the only person I truly want to comfort me is Haymitch, because he loves Peeta, too. I reach out for him and say something like his name and he's there, holding me and patting my back. "It's okay. It'll be okay, sweetheart." He sits me on a length of broken marble pillar and keeps an arm around me while I sob.

"I can't do this anymore," I say.

"I know," he says. ~ Suzanne Collins

Acts themselves alone are history, and these are neither the exclusive property of Hume, Gibbon nor Voltaire, Echard, Rapin, Plutarch, nor Herodotus. Tell me the Acts, O historian, and leave me to reason upon them as I please; away with your reasoning and your rubbish. All that is not action is not worth reading. ~ William Blake

Among real friends there is no rivalry or jealousy of one another, but they are satisfied and contented alike whether they are equal or one of them is superior. ~ Plutarch

For the wise man, every day is a festival. ~ Plutarch

A Locanian having plucked all the feathers off from a nightingale and seeing what a little body it had, "surely," quoth he, "thou art all voice and nothing else. ~ Plutarch

Once when Phocion had delivered an opinion which pleased the people, ... he turned to his friend and said, Have I not unawares spoken some mischievous thing or other? ~ Plutarch

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

While Leonidas was preparing to make his stand, a Persian envoy arrived. The envoy explained to Leonidas the futility of trying to resist the advance of the Great King's army and demanded that the Greeks lay down their arms and submit to the might of Persia. Leonidas laconically told Xerxes, Come and get them. ~ Plutarch

For fortune having hitherto seconded him in his designs, made him resolute and firm in his opinions, and the boldness of his temper raised a sort of passion in him for surmounting difficulties; as if it were not enough to be always victorious in the field, unless places and seasons and nature herself submitted to him. ~ Plutarch

They are wrong who think that politics is like an ocean voyage or a military campaign, something to be done with some particular end in view, something which leaves off as soon as that end is reached. It is not a public chore, to be got over with. It is a way of life. It is the life of a domesticated political and social creature who is born with a love for public life, with a desire for honor, with a feeling for his fellows; and it lasts as long as need be. ~ Plutarch

One made the observation of the people of Asia that they were all slaves to one man, merely because they could not pronounce that syllable No. ~ Plutarch

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

He [Caesar] loved the treason, but hated the traitor. ~ Plutarch

I, for my own part, had much rather people should say of me that there neither is nor ever was such a man as Plutarch, than that they should say, Plutarch is an unsteady, fickle, froward, vindictive, and touchy fellow. ~ Plutarch

Nothing exists in the intellect that has not first gone through the senses. ~ Plutarch

When malice is joined to envy, there is given forth poisonous and feculent matter, as ink from the cuttle-fish. ~ 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

An old doting fool, with one foot already in the grave. ~ Plutarch