Plutarch Quotes

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.

Music, to create harmony, must investigate discord.

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

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

Time which diminishes all things increases understanding for the aging.

Democritus said, words are but the shadows of actions.

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

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

Silence is an answer to a wise man.

Forgetfulness transforms every occurrence into a non-occurrence.

But the Lacedaemonians, who make it their first principle of action to serve their country's interest, know not any thing to be just or unjust by any measure but that.

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.

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."

Someone praising a man for his foolhardy bravery, Cato, the elder, said, ''There is a wide difference between true courage and a mere contempt of life.

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

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.

Those are greedy of praise prove that they are poor in merit.

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.

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

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

Apothegms are the most infallible mirror to represent a man truly what he is.

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

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

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

God alone is entirely exempt from all want of human virtues, that which needs least is the most absolute and divine.

For the correct analogy for the mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting.

Both Empedocles and Heraclitus held it for a truth that man could not be altogether cleared from injustice in dealing with beasts as he now does.

The wildest colts make the best horses.

The pilot cannot mitigate the billows or calm the winds.

Cicero said loud-bawling orators were driven by their weakness to noise, as lame men to take horse.

Philosophy is the art of living.

He is a fool who lets slip a bird in the hand for a bird in the bush.

Agesilaus being invited once to hear a man who admirably imitated the nightingale, he declined, saying he had heard the nightingale itself.

Distressed valor challenges great respect, even from an enemy.

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

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.

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

It is a hard matter, my fellow citizens, to argue with the belly, since it has no ears.

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.

Gout is not relieved by a fine shoe nor a hangnail by a costly ring nor migraine by a tiara.

Lying is a most disgraceful vice; it first despises God, and then fears men.

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

Where the lion's skin will not reach, you must patch it out with the fox's.

It is easy to utter what has been kept silent, but impossible to recall what has been uttered.

The human heart becomes softened by hearing of instances of gentleness and consideration.

A healer of others, himself diseased.

Proper listening is the foundation of proper living.

Phocion compared the speeches of Leosthenes to cypress-trees. "They are tall," said he, "and comely, but bear no fruit."

Words will build no walls.

Let a prince be guarded with soldiers, attended by councillors, and shut up in forts; yet if his thoughts disturb him, he is miserable.