Plutarch Quotes

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

Books delight to the very marrow of one's bones. They speak to us, consult with us, and join with us in a living and intense intimacy.

It is a true proverb, that if you live with a lame man, you will learn to limp.

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.

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.

Know how to listen, and you will profit even from those who talk badly.

For kings indeed we have, who wear the marks and assume the titles of royalty, but as for the qualities of their minds, they have nothing by which they are to be distinguished from their subjects.

For many, as Cranton tells us, and those very wise men, not now but long ago, have deplored the condition of human nature, esteeming life a punishment, and to be born a man the highest pitch of calamity; this, Aristotle tells us, Silenus declared when he was brought captive to Midas.

[It was] better to set up a monarchy themselves than to suffer a sedition to continue that must certainly end in one.

When one asked him what boys should learn, "That," said he, "which they shall use when men."

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

When Eudæmonidas heard a philosopher arguing that only a wise man can be a good general, "This is a wonderful speech," said he; "but he that saith it never heard the sound of trumpets."

I would rather excel in the knowledge of what is excellent than the extent of my power or possessions.

I, for my part, wonder of what sort of feeling, mind or reason that man was possessed who was first to pollute his mouth with gore, and to allow his lips to touch the flesh of a murdered being: who spread his table with the mangled forms of dead bodies, and claimed as daily food and dainty dishes what but now were beings endowed with movement, perception and with voice.

…but for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh, we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that portion of life and time it had been born in to the world to enjoy.

In whatsoever countrey men are bred
(I know not by what sweetnesse of it led),
They nourish in their minds a glad desire,
Unto their native homes for to retire,