Plutarch

Apothegms are the most infallible mirror to represent a man truly what he is.

— Plutarch

Choose what is best, and habit will make it pleasant and easy.

— Plutarch

Music, to create harmony, must investigate discord.

— Plutarch

Wise men are able to make a fitting use even of their enmities.

— Plutarch

When the strong box contains no more both friends and flatterers shun the door.

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

Fate leads him who follows it, and drags him who resist.

— Plutarch

Riches for the most part are hurtful to them that possess them.

— Plutarch

A traveller at Sparta, standing long upon one leg, said to a Lacedaemonian, "I do not believe you can do as much."…

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

Immoderate grief is selfish, harmful, brings no advantage to either the mourner or the mourned, and dishonors the dead.

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

Phocion compared the speeches of Leosthenes to cypress-trees. "They are tall," said he, "and comely, but bear no fruit."

— Plutarch

Demosthenes overcame and rendered more distinct his inarticulate and stammering pronunciation by speaking with pebbles in his mouth.

— Plutarch

For the mind does not require filling like a bottle, but rather, like wood, it only requires kindling to create in it…

— Plutarch

Let us carefully observe those good qualities wherein our enemies excel us; and endeavor to excel them, by avoiding what is faulty,…

— Plutarch

“For lack of rules (which the undisciplined sector of the young call freedom) sets masters over one which are more tyrannical than…

— Plutarch

Alexander wept when he heard from Anaxarchus that there was an infinite number of worlds; and his friends asking him if any…

— Plutarch

It is not histories I am writing, but lives; and in the most glorious deeds there is not always an indication of…

— Plutarch

When Anaxagoras was told of the death of his son, he only said, "I knew he was mortal." So we in all…

— Plutarch

If you hate your enemies, you will contract such a vicious habit of mind that it will break out upon those who…

— Plutarch

Among real friends there is no rivalry or jealousy of one another, but they are satisfied and contented alike whether they are…

— Plutarch

“Can you really ask what reason Pythagoras had for abstaining from flesh? For my part I rather wonder both by what accident…

— Plutarch

Lycurgus the Lacedæmonian brought long hair into fashion among his countrymen, saying that it rendered those that were handsome more beautiful, and…

— Plutarch

“For as we would wish that a painter who is to draw a beautiful face, in which there is yet some imperfection,…

— Plutarch

I, for my part, wonder of what sort of feeling, mind or reason that man was possessed who was first to pollute…

— Plutarch

Poverty is never dishonourable in itself, but only when it is a mark of sloth, intemperance, extravagance, or thoughtlessness. When, on the…

— Plutarch

Antagoras the poet was boiling a conger, and Antigonus, coming behind him as he was stirring his skillet, said, "Do you think,…

— Plutarch

“Pile up gold, heap up silver, build covered walks, fill your house with slaves and the town with debtors, unless you lay…

— Plutarch

The Epicureans, according to whom animals had no creation, doe suppose that by mutation of one into another, they were first made;…

— Plutarch

Good birth is a fine thing, but the merit is our ancestors.

— Plutarch

When the candles are out all women are fair.

— Plutarch

Anger turns the mind out of doors and bolts the entrance.

— Plutarch

When men are arrived at the goal, they should not turn back.

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

Water and our necessary food are the only things that wise men must fight for.

— Plutarch

He who owns a hundred sheep must fight with fifty wolves

— Plutarch