Plutarch Quotes

For the Greek name for moral virtue is only habit: and if anyone defines moral virtues as habitual virtues, he will not be beside the mark.

I did not so much gain the knowledge of things by the words, as words by the experience I had of things.

That which is chiefly the office of a general, to force the enemy into fighting when he finds himself the stronger, and to avoid being driven into it himself when he is the weaker...

Dionysius the Elder, being asked whether he was at leisure, he replied, "God forbid that it should ever befall me!"

if the “Know thyself” of the oracle were an easy thing for every man, it would not be held to be a divine injunction.

"As he spoke, he opened his clothes, and showed his breast with an incredible number of scars upon it; then turning to Galba, who had made some remarks not very decent "You laugh," said he, "at these other marks: but I glory in them before my countrymen, for I got them by riding, night and day, in their service. But come, bring them to vote; I will go amongst them and follow them all to the poll, that I may know those who are cowardly and ungrateful, and like rather to be ruled by a demagogue than by a true general.

Denn man darf wohl suchen, einem ungünstigen Ereignis eine günstige Wendung zu geben.

The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.

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

Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little.

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.

Valour, however unfortunate, commands great respect even from enemies: but the Romans despise cowardice, even though it be prosperous.

When someone asked Demaratus why the Spartans disgrace those who throw away their shields but not those who abandon their breastplates or helmets, he said that they put the latter on for their own sakes but the shield for the sake of the whole line.

For the first step towards victory undoubtedly is to gain courage.

Numa forbade the Romans to revere an image of God which had the form of man or beast. Nor was there among them in this earlier time any painted or graven likeness of Deity, 8 but while for the first hundred and seventy years they were continually building temples and establishing sacred shrines, they made no statues in bodily form for them, convinced that it was impious to liken higher things to lower, and that it was impossible to apprehend Deity except by the intellect.