Firsts Quotes by Plutarch

Anaximander says that men were first produced in fishes, and when they were grown up and able to help themselves were thrown…

— Plutarch

The same intelligence is required to marshal an army in battle and to order a good dinner. The first must be as…

— Plutarch

The man who first brought ruin upon the Roman people was he who pampered them by largesses and amusements.

— Plutarch

He (Cato) used to say that in all his life he never repented but of three things. The first was that he…

— Plutarch

Zeno first started that doctrine, that knavery is the best defence against a knave.

— Plutarch

Nothing exists in the intellect that has not first gone through the senses.

— Plutarch

The first man . . . ventured to call food and nourishment the parts that had a little before bellowed and cried,…

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

Though others before him had triumphed three times, Pompeius, by having gained his first triumph over Libya, his second over Europe, and…

— Plutarch

Blinded as they are to their true character by self-love, every man is his own first and chiefest flatterer, prepared, therefore, to…

— Plutarch

Philosophy finds talkativeness a disease very difficult and hard to cure. For its remedy, conversation, requires hearers: but talkative people hear nobody,…

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

“But the Lacedaemonians, who make it their first principle of action to serve their country's interest, know not any thing to be…

— Plutarch

If you declare that you are naturally designed for such a diet, then first kill for yourself what you want to eat.…

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

He who first called money the sinews of the state seems to have said this with special reference to war.

— Plutarch

Athenodorus says hydrophobia, or water-dread, was first discovered in the time of Asclepiades.

— Plutarch

When Demosthenes was asked what was the first part of Oratory, he answered, "Action," and which was the second, he replied, "action,"…

— Plutarch

The talkative listen to no one, for they are ever speaking. And the first evil that attends those who know not to…

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

Nature without learning is like a blind man; learning without Nature, like a maimed one; practice without both, incomplete. As in agriculture…

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch