Plutarch Quotes

It is indeed a desirable thing to be well-descended, but the glory belongs to our ancestors.

Character is long-standing habit.

To be ignorant of the lives of the most celebrated men of antiquity is to continue in a state of childhood all our days.

Do not speak of your happiness to one less fortunate than yourself.

The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.

Barba non facit philosophum

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

Silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech.

In words are seen the state of mind and character and disposition of the speaker.

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.

The richest soil, if uncultivated, produces the rankest weeds.

Time is the wisest of all counselors.

No beast is more savage than man when possessed with power answerable to his rage.

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

The measure of a man is the way he bears up under misfortune.

All men whilst they are awake are in one common world: but each of them, when he is asleep, is in a world of his own.

Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks.

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

Medicine to produce health must examine disease; and music, to create harmony must investigate discord.

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

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

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.

A few vices are sufficient to darken many virtues.

The wildest colts make the best horses.

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.

Water continually dropping will wear hard rocks hollow.

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

The whole life of man is but a point of time; let us enjoy it.

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

When the candles are out all women are fair.

The first evil those who are prone to talk suffer, is that they hear nothing.

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

As to Caesar, when he was called upon, he gave no testimony against Clodius, nor did he affirm that he was certain of any injury done to his bed. He only said, He had divorced Pompeia because the wife of Caesar ought not only to be clear of such a crime, but of the very suspicion of it.

In human life there is constant change of fortune; and it is unreasonable to expect an exemption from the common fate. Life itself decays, and all things are daily changing.

Distressed valor challenges great respect, even from an enemy.

No man ever wetted clay and then left it, as if there would be bricks by chance and fortune.

For to err in opinion, though it be not the part of wise men, is at least human.

Those who aim at great deeds must also suffer greatly.

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

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

Rest is the sweet sauce of labor.

The giving of riches and honors to a wicked man is like giving strong wine to him that hath a fever.

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.