Quotes About Plutarch

#1. 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

#2. 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

#3. 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

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

Joseph Addison

#5. If Plutarch is the essayist I want to believe he is, he would want us all to sit in his chair.

John D'Agata

#6. Abstain from beans. There be sundry interpretations of this symbol. But Plutarch and Cicero think beans to be forbidden of Pythagoras, because they be windy and do engender impure humours and for that cause provoke bodily lust.

Richard Taverner

#7. 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

#8. Plutarch has written an essay on the benefits which a man may receive from his enemies; and among the good fruits of enmity, mentions this in particular, that by the reproaches which it casts upon us, we see the worst side of ourselves.

Joseph Addison

#9. 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

#10. 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

#11. 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

#12. For the company of the great is good company as Shakespeare understood it, as Plutarch understood it. The past remains the source from which example and precept can still be drawn.

C.V. Wedgwood

#13. Speeding in to blow us out of the sky? As we travel over District 12, I watch anxiously for signs of an attack, but nothing pursues us. After several minutes, when I hear an exchange between Plutarch and the pilot confirming that the airspace is clear, I begin to

Suzanne Collins

#14. The Roman historian Plutarch estimated that the civilized Romans under Julius Caesar, in his decade-long campaign in Gaul, destroyed 800 towns and villages and enslaved 3 million people.

Mark Kurlansky

#15. We had to save you because you're the mockingjay, Katniss," says Plutarch. "While you live, the revolution lives.

Suzanne Collins

#16. Even though I don't ask, Plutarch gives me cheerful updates on the phone like "Good news, Katniss! I think we've almost got him convinced you're not a mutt!" Or "Today he was allowed to feed himself pudding!

Suzanne Collins

#17. I don't even know why you bothered to put Finnick and me through training, Plutarch," I say.

Suzanne Collins

#18. When I ask Plutarch about his absence, he just shakes his head and says, "He couldnt face it."
"Haymitch? Not able to face something? Wanted a day off, more likely," I say.
"I think his actual words were 'I couldn't face it without a bottle,'" says Plutarch.

Suzanne Collins

#19. Though the ancient poet in Plutarch tells us we must not trouble the gods with our affairs because they take no heed of our angers and disputes, we can never enough decry the disorderly sallies of our minds.

Michel De Montaigne

#20. In 'Plutarch,' her voice begins to come out; there are actual 2,000-year-old quotes from Cleopatra, and they are sly and saucy.

Stacy Schiff

#21. You know what I miss? More than anything? Coffee.
Plutarch Heavensbee

Suzanne Collins

#22. As it turns out, Plutarch, consciously or unconsciously, touched on a truth that most of us feel, but rarely meditate upon: the little things in behaviour are the door not only to the real character of people but also to their soul.

Nicos Hadjicostis

#23. Plutarch was right after all. Fate did lead those who were willing to be led, and those who resisted the idea, like himself, were dragged forcefully instead.

Elif Shafak

#24. 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

#25. 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

#26. 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

#27. History of science is a relay race, my painter friend. Copernicus took over his flag from Aristarchus, from Cicero, from Plutarch; and Galileo took that flag over from Copernicus.

Mehmet Murat Ildan

#28. Of course you are. The tributes were necessary to the Games, too. Until they weren't," I say. "And then we were very disposable - right, Plutarch?

Suzanne Collins

#29. The intimate and meditative form that Plutarch became known for was completely new in his day.

John D'Agata

#30. 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

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

Socrates

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

James Russell Lowell

#33. I could recite you the whole of Thucydides, Xenophon, Plutarch, Titus Livius, Tacitus, Strada, Jornandes, Dante, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Spinoza, Machiavelli, and Bossuet. I name only the most important." "You

Alexandre Dumas

#34. I look for the kind of text that doesn't look like the writer I'm considering. Plutarch is a great example.

John D'Agata

#35. It was Plutarch, you know, and nothing intrinsically American that prevented George Washington being a King ...

H.G.Wells

#36. 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

#37. Must not trouble the gods with our affairs; they take no heed of our angers and disputes.Plutarch.]

Michel De Montaigne

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

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

#41. 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

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

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

#48. 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

#49. 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

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

Plutarch

#51. 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

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

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

#55. 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

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

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

#61. 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.

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

#65. 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.

Plutarch

#66. 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

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

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

#71. 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

#72. 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.

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

#75. 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

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

Plutarch

#77. 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

#78. 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

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

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

#81. 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

#82. 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.

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

#85. 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

#86. 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.

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

#90. 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

#91. 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

#92. 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

#93. 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

#94. 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

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

Plutarch

#96. 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

#97. The belly has no ears.

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

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

Plutarch

#100. 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