Plutarch's Quotes

#1. Why I love the ancients so much? Aside from everything else, when I read them, the entire past between them and me unfolds at thesame time. The hearts of how many heroes and poets may have been set on fire by Plutarch's biographies which now inspire me with their own and with borrowed flames!

Franz Grillparzer

#2. Plutarch's peers were writing "rhetorics," which were these dry philosophical treatises that made really broad gestures about life and death and fate. Plutarch stepped out of the stream to create an essayistic form that relied on a digressive structure and down to earth anecdotes.

John D'Agata

#3. I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.
[As quoted in Plutarch's Of Banishment]

Socrates

#4. Here was a type of the true elder race, And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face.

James Russell Lowell

#5. If your friend wishes to read your 'Plutarch's Lives,' 'Shakespeare,' or 'The Federalist Papers,' tell him gently but firmly, to buy a copy. You will lend him your car or your coat - but your books are as much a part of you as your head or your heart.

Mortimer J. Adler

#6. Knowledge of divine things for the most part, as Heraclitus says, is lost to us by incredulity.

Plutarch

#7. Empire may be gained by gold, not gold by empire. It used, indeed, to be a proverb that It is not Philip, but Philip's gold that takes the cities of Greece.

Plutarch

#8. Education and study, and the favours of the muses, confer no greater benefit on those that seek them than these humanizing and civilizing lessons, which teach our natural qualities to submit to the limitations prescribed by reason, and to avoid the wildness of extremes.

Plutarch

#9. The belly has no ears.

Plutarch

#10. Our senses through ignorance of Reality, falsely tell us that what appears to be, is. FEAR = False Evidence Appearing Real

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

#12. The saying of old Antigonus, who when he was to fight at Andros, and one told him, "The enemy's ships are more than ours," replied, "For how many then wilt thou reckon me?

Plutarch

#13. It was a pleasure merely to hear the sound of her voice, with which, like an instrument of many strings, she could pass from one language to another; so that there were few of the barbarian nations that she answered by an interpreter.

Plutarch

#14. To the Greeks, the supreme function of music was to "praise the gods and educate the youth". In Egypt ... Initiatory music was heard only in Temple rites because it carried the vibratory rhythms of other worlds and of a life beyond the mortal.

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

#17. Time which diminishes all things increases understanding for the aging.

Plutarch

#18. we ought not to let either our joy at their faults or our grief at their success be idle, but in either case we ought to reflect, how we may become better than them by avoiding their errors, and by imitating their virtues not come short of them.

Plutarch

#19. 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.

Plutarch

#20. He (Cato) used to say that in all his life he never repented but of three things. The first was that he had trusted a woman with a secret; the second that he had gone by sea when he might have gone by land; and the third, that had passed one day without having a will by him.

Plutarch

#21. If any man think it a small matter, or of mean concernment, to bridle his tongue, he is much mistaken; for it is a point to be silent when occasion requires, and better than to speak, though never so well.

Plutarch

#22. 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

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

Plutarch

#24. Those who aim at great deeds must also suffer greatly.

Plutarch

#25. A mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be lighted.

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#26. Men who marry wives very much superior to themselves are not so truly husbands to their wives as they are unawares made slaves to their position.

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#27. As those that pull down private houses adjoining to the temples of the gods, prop up such parts as are contiguous to them; so, in undermining bashfulness, due regard is to be had to adjacent modesty, good-nature and humanity.

Plutarch

#28. All beyond this is portentous and fabulous, inhabited by poets and mythologers, and there is nothing true or certain.

Plutarch

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

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#30. To Harmodius, descended from the ancient Harmodius, when he reviled Iphicrates [a shoemaker's son] for his mean birth, "My nobility," said he, "begins in me, but yours ends in you.

Plutarch

#31. Such power I gave the people as might do,
Abridged not what they had, now lavished new,
Those that were great in wealth and high in place
My counsel likewise kept from all disgrace.
Before them both I held my shield of might,
And let not either touch the other's right.

Plutarch

#32. I like Plutarch because I've read him forever, and I know that he's incredibly funky, even though his mainstream image is as Mr. Unfunky.

John D'Agata

#33. 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.

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

#35. Cicero called Aristotle a river of flowing gold, and said of Plato's Dialogues, that if Jupiter were to speak, it would be in language like theirs.

Plutarch

#36. When a man's struggle begins within oneself, the man is worth something.

Plutarch

#37. And Archimedes, as he was washing, thought of a manner of computing the proportion of gold in King Hiero's crown by seeing the water flowing over the bathing-stool. He leaped up as one possessed or inspired, crying, "I have found it! Eureka!".

Plutarch

#38. Plutarch rushes to reassure me. "Oh, no, Katniss. Not your wedding. Finnick and Annie's. All you need to do is show up and pretend to be happy for them."
"That's one of the few things I won't have to pretend, Plutarch," I tell him.

Suzanne Collins

#39. Why don't I just pretend I'm on camera, Plutarch?" I say.
"Yes! Perfect. One is always much braver with an audience," he says. "Look at the courage Peeta just displayed!"
It's all I can do not to slap him.

Suzanne Collins

#40. As Meander says, "For our mind is God;" and as Heraclitus, "Man's genius is a deity.

Plutarch

#41. Pompey had fought brilliantly and in the end routed Caesar's whole force ... but either he was unable to or else he feared to push on. Caesar [said] to his friends: 'Today the enemy would have won, if they had had a commander who was a winner.

Plutarch

#42. From every ancient source, we have testimony to Cleopatra's irresistible charm, as Plutarch has it, to her ability to speak many languages including, as he puts it, the language of flattery and essentially, to be able to turn people to her will - really a great political genius, in that respect.

Stacy Schiff

#43. 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

#44. Caesar's wife should be above suspicion.

Plutarch

#45. God is the brave man's hope, and not the coward's excuse.

Plutarch

#46. Nothing made the horse so fat as the king's eye.

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

#48. What is bigger than an elephant? But this also is become man's plaything, and a spectacle at public solemnities; and it learns to skip, dance, and kneel

Plutarch

#49. 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.

Plutarch

#50. 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

#51. Themistocles replied that a man's discourse was like to a rich Persian carpet, the beautiful figures and patterns of which can only be shown by spreading and extending it out; when it is contracted and folded up, they are obscured and lost.

Plutarch

#52. Anacharsis coming to Athens, knocked at Solon's door, and told him that he, being a stranger, was come to be his guest, and contract a friendship with him; and Solon replying, "It is better to make friends at home," Anacharsis replied, "Then you that are at home make friendship with me.

Plutarch

#53. 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

#54. 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

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

Plutarch

#56. To conduct great matters and never commit a fault is above the force of human nature.

Plutarch

#57. Rather I fear on the contrary that while we banish painful thoughts we may banish memory as well.

Plutarch

#58. Justice makes the life of such as are in prosperity, power and authority the life of a god, and injustice turns it to that of a beast.

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

#60. Xenophon says that there is no sound more pleasing than one's own praises.

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

#62. The malicious humor of men, though perverse and refractory, is not so savage and invincible but it may be wrought upon by kindness, and altered by repeated obligations.

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

#64. As soft wax is apt to take the stamp of the seal, so are the minds of young children to receive the instruction imprinted on them.

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

#66. Mothers ought to bring up and nurse their own children; for they bring them up with greater affection and with greater anxiety, as loving them from the heart, and so to speak, every inch of them.

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

#68. Alexander esteemed it more kingly to govern himself than to conquer his enemies.

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

#72. Water continually dropping will wear hard rocks hollow.

Plutarch

#73. When one told Plistarchus that a notorious railer spoke well of him, "I 'll lay my life," said he, "somebody hath told him I am dead, for he can speak well of no man living.

Plutarch

#74. I am whatever was, or is, or will be; and my veil no mortal ever took up.

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#75. For the wise man, every day is a festival.

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

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#77. 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.

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#78. 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

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

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#80. After he routed Pharnaces Ponticus at the first assault, he wrote thus to his friends: I came, I saw, I conquered.

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#81. 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.

Plutarch

#82. 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.

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

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#84. The new king [Alexander the Great] should perform acts so important and glorious as would make the poets and musicians of future ages labour and sweat to describe and celebrate him.

Plutarch

#85. Plutarch says very finely that a man should not allow himself to hate even his enemies.

Joseph Addison

#86. Many things which cannot be overcome when they are together yield
themselves up when taken little by little.

Plutarch

#87. I do not think that shoemaker a good workman that makes a great shoe for a little foot.

Plutarch

#88. For he who gives no fuel to fire puts it out, and likewise he who does not in the beginning nurse his wrath and does not puff himself up with anger takes precautions against it and destroys it.

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#89. Alcibiades had a very handsome dog, that cost him seven thousand drachmas; and he cut off his tail, "that," said he, "the Athenians may have this story to tell of me, and may concern themselves no further with me.

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

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

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#92. I see the cure is not worth the pain.

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#93. Friendship is the most pleasant of all things, and nothing more glads the heart of man.

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#94. 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.

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#95. 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.

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#96. We rich men count our felicity and happiness to lie in these superfluities, and not in those necessary things.

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#97. Where two discourse, if the anger of one rises, he is the wise man who lets the contest fall.

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#98. Playing the Cretan with the Cretans (i.e. lying to liars).

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#99. Aristodemus, a friend of Antigonus, supposed to be a cook's son, advised him to moderate his gifts and expenses. "Thy words," said he, "Aristodemus, smell of the apron.

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#100. Of all the disorders in the soul, envy is the only one no one confesses to.

Plutarch