These 58 Insightful Quotes By Plutarch, The Renowned Greek Biographer | Plutarch audiobook | Bright Quotes
1) The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.
2) I don't need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod; my shadow does that much better.
3) What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.
4) An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.
5) To find fault is easy; to do better may be difficult.
6) Know how to listen, and you will profit even from those who talk badly.
7) The poor go to war, to fight and die for the delights, riches, and superfluities of others.
8) Adversity is the only balance to weigh friends.
9) 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.
10) The whole of life is but a moment of time. It is our duty, therefore to use it, not to misuse it.
11) It is certainly desirable to be well descended, but the glory belongs to our ancestors.
12) 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.
13) Neither blame or praise yourself.
14) To be ignorant of the lives of the most celebrated men of antiquity is to continue in a state of childhood all our days.
15) Of all the disorders in the soul, envy is the only one no one confesses to.
16) When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept for there were no more worlds to conquer. (Technically a misquote, but I like the misquote better)
17) Music, to create harmony, must investigate discord.
18) But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy.
19) Do not speak of your happiness to one less fortunate than yourself.
20) Silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech.
21) Courage stands halfway between cowardice and rashness, one of which is a lack, the other an excess of courage.
22) 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.
23) It does not follow, that because a particular work of art succeeds in charming us, its creator also deserves our admiration.
24) Painting is silent poetry.
25) It is part of a good man to do great and noble deeds, though he risk everything.
26) 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.
27) Evidence of trust begets trust, and love is reciprocated by love.
28) Vultures are the most righteous of birds: they do not attack even the smallest living creature.
29) In words are seen the state of mind and character and disposition of the speaker.
30) Many things which cannot be overcome when they are together yield themselves up when taken little by little.
31) The Spartans do not ask how many are the enemy but where are they.
32) To the Dolphin alone, beyond all other, nature has granted what the best philosophers seek: friendship for no advantage.
33) Prosperity is no just scale; adversity is the only balance to weigh friends.
34) Courage consists not in hazarding without fear; but being resolutely minded in a just cause.
35) A few vices are sufficient to darken many virtues.
36) For there is no virtue, the honor and credit for which procures a man more odium than that of justice; and this, because more than any other, it acquires a man power and authority among the common people.
37) In a certain faraway land the cold is so intense that words freeze as soon as they are uttered, and after some time then thaw and become audible so that words spoken in winter go unheard until the next summer.
38) But the Lacedaemonians, who make it their first principle of action to serve their country's interest, know not any thing to be just or unjust by any measure but that.
39) It’s 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 its place is a work extremely troublesome.
40) The process may seem strange and yet it is very true. I did not so much gain the knowledge of things by the words, as words by the experience I had of things.
41) Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks.
42) He who least likes courting favour, ought also least to think of resenting neglect; to feel wounded at being refused a distinction can only arise from an overweening appetite to have it.
43) In Springtime, O Dionysos, To thy holy temple come, To Elis with thy Graces, Rushing with thy bull-foot, come, Noble Bull, Noble Bull.
44) A mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be lighted.
45) Rather I fear on the contrary that while we banish painful thoughts we may banish memory as well.
46) The superstitious man wishes he did not believe in gods, as the atheist does not, but fears to disbelieve in them.
47) I am all that hath been, and is, and shall be; and my veil no mortal has hitherto raised.
48) [It was] better to set up a monarchy themselves than to suffer a sedition to continue that must certainly end in one.
49) Come and take them.
50) When asked by a woman from Attica:'Why are you Spartan women the only ones who can rule men?', she said: 'Because we are the only ones who give birth to men.
51) So long as he was personally present, [Alcibiades] had the perfect mastery of his political adversaries; calumny only succeeded in his absence.
52) They insist upon the shaving of the moustache, I think, in order that they may accustom the young men to obedience in the most trifling matters.
53) I don't need a friend who change when I change, who nod when I nod. This is something than my own shadow can do.
54) The whole like of a man is but a point of time; let us enjoy it.
55) It is a true proverb, that if you live with a lame man, you will learn to limp.
56) For though all persons are equally subject to the caprice of fortune, yet all good men have one advantage she cannot deny, which is this, to act reasonably under misfortunes.
57) The fact is that men who know nothing of decency in their own lives are only too ready to launch foul slanders against their betters and to offer them up as victims to the evil deity of popular envy.
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