Quotes by Plutarch


What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.
– Plutarch
A few vices are sufficient to darken many virtues.
– Plutarch
A Roman divorced from his wife, being highly blamed by his friends, who demanded, Was she not chaste? Was she not fair? Was she not fruitful? holding out his shoe, asked them whether it was not new and well made. Yet, added he, none of you can tell where it pinches me.
– Plutarch
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.
– Plutarch
An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.
– Plutarch
Character is simply habit long continued.
– Plutarch
I don't need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod; my shadow does that much better.
– Plutarch
I would rather excel in the knowledge of what is excellent, than in the extent of my power and possessions.
– Plutarch
If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes.
– Plutarch
In words are seen the state of mind and character and disposition of the speaker.
– Plutarch
It is part of a good man to do great and noble deeds, though he risk everything.
– Plutarch
It were better to have no opinion of God at all than such a one as is unworthy of him; for the one is only belief - the other contempt.
– Plutarch
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.
– Plutarch
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.
– Plutarch
Medicine to produce health must examine disease; and music, to create harmony must investigate discord.
– Plutarch
Moral habits, induced by public practices, are far quicker in making their way into men's private lives, than the failings and faults of individuals are in infecting the city at large.
– Plutarch
Neither blame or praise yourself.
– Plutarch
No man ever wetted clay and then left it, as if there would be bricks by chance and fortune.
– Plutarch
Nothing is harder to direct than a man in prosperity; nothing more easily managed that one is adversity.
– Plutarch
Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks.
– Plutarch
Prosperity is no just scale; adversity is the only balance to weigh friends.
– Plutarch
Someone praising a man for his foolhardy bravery, Cato, the elder, said, There is a wide difference between true courage and a mere contempt of life.
– Plutarch
The omission of good is no less reprehensible than the commission of evil.
– Plutarch
The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.
– Plutarch
The wildest colts make the best horses.
– Plutarch
Those who aim at great deeds must also suffer greatly.
– Plutarch
To be ignorant of the lives of the most celebrated men of antiquity is to continue in a state of childhood all our days.
– Plutarch
When Demosthenes was asked what were the three most important aspects of oratory, he answered, Action, Action, Action.
– Plutarch
When the strong box contains no more both friends and flatterers shun the door.
– Plutarch
Vos vestros servate, meos mihi linquite mores
You keep to your own ways, and leave mine to me
– Plutarch
“The God, as it were, addresses each of us, as he enters, with his Know Thyself, which is at least as good as Hail. We answer the God back with EI (Thou Art), rendering to him the designation which is true and has no lie in it, and alone belongs to him, and to no other, that of being. . . . There are those who think that Apollo and the sun are the same; we hail them and love them for the fair name they give, and it is fitting to do so; for they associate their idea of the God with that which they honour and desire more than all other things which they know. But now that we see them dreaming of the God in the fairest of nightly visions, let us rise and encourage them to mount yet higher, to contemplate him in a dream of the day, and to see his own being. . . . To my thinking the word EI . . . testifies to the God that THOU ART.
– Plutarch
No beast is more savage than man when possessed with power answerable to his rage.
– Plutarch
The whole life of man is but a point of time; let us enjoy it.
– Plutarch
To find a fault is easy; to do better may be difficult.
– Plutarch
It is certainly desirable to be well descended, but the glory belongs to our ancestors.
– Plutarch
An old doting fool, with one foot already in the grave.
– Plutarch
For to err in opinion, though it be not the part of wise men, is at least human.
– Plutarch
When the candles are out all women are fair.
– Plutarch
To make no mistakes is not in the power of man but from their errors and mistakes the wise and good learn wisdom for the future.
– Plutarch
The very spring and root of honesty and virtue lie in good education.
– Plutarch
The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.
– Plutarch
Silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech.
– Plutarch
Do not speak of your happiness to one less fortunate than yourself.
– Plutarch
Courage stands halfway between cowardice and rashness, one of which is a lack, the other an excess of courage.
– Plutarch
Courage consists not in hazarding without fear but being resolutely minded in a just cause.
– Plutarch