Plutarch Quotes

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

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

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

For man is a plant, not fixed in the earth, nor immovable, but heavenly, whose head, rising as it were from a root upwards, is turned towards heaven.

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

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

Abstruse questions must have abstruse answers.

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

Those who aim at great deeds must also suffer greatly.

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

Fate, however, is to all appearance more unavoidable than unexpected.

I had rather men should ask why my statue is not set up, than why it is.

A fool cannot hold his tongue.

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

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

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

Time is the soul of this world.

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

Come back with your shield - or on it

Either is both, and Both is neither.

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.

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

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

A prating barber asked Archelaus how he would be trimmed. He answered, "In silence."

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.

Not by lamentations and mournful chants ought we to celebrate the funeral of a good man, but by hymns, for in ceasing to be numbered with mortals he enters upon the heritage of a diviner life.

Character is simply habit long continued.

Knavery is the best defense against a knave.

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

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

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

Character is long-standing habit.

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

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

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."]

I see the cure is not worth the pain.

A lover's soul lives in the body of his mistress.

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

Rest is the sweet sauce of labor.

They fought indeed and were slain, but it was to maintain the luxury and the wealth of other men.

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

The superstitious man wishes he did not believe in gods, as the atheist does not, but fears to disbelieve in them.

Democritus said, words are but the shadows of actions.

Nature and wisdom never are at strife.

Time which diminishes all things increases understanding for the aging.

A warrior carries his shield for the sake of the entire line.

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

Music, to create harmony, must investigate discord.

What All The World Knows Water is the principle, or the element, of things. All things are water.

The man who is completely wise and virtuous has no need of glory, except so far as it disposes and eases his way to action by the greater trust that it procures him.