Quotes from Plutarch

It is not reasonable that he who does not shoot should hit the mark, nor that he who does not stand fast at his post should win the day, or that the helpless man should succeed or the coward prosper.

There is never the body of a man, how strong and stout soever, if it be troubled and inflamed, but will take more harm and offense by wine being poured into it.

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

Anaximander says that men were first produced in fishes, and when they were grown up and able to help themselves were thrown up, and so lived upon the land.

When a man's struggle begins within oneself, the man is worth something.

When Eudæmonidas heard a philosopher arguing that only a wise man can be a good general, "This is a wonderful speech," said he; "but he that saith it never heard the sound of trumpets.

There is no perfecter endowment in man than political virtue.

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

One made the observation of the people of Asia that they were all slaves to one man, merely because they could not pronounce that syllable No.

Friendship is the most pleasant of all things, and nothing more glads the heart of man.

When one told Plistarchus that a notorious railer spoke well of him, "I'll lay my life," said he, "somebody hath told him I am dead, for he can speak well of no man living.'

The most glorious exploits do not always furnish us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men.

We rich men count our felicity and happiness to lie in these superfluities, and not in those necessary things.

Mothers ought to bring up and nurse their own children; for they bring them up with greater affection and with greater anxiety, as loving them from the heart, and so to speak, every inch of them.

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

...To the Dolphin alone, beyond all other, nature has granted what the best philosophers seek: friendship for no advantage

We are more sensible of what is done against custom than against nature.

We ought not to treat living creatures like shoes or household belongings, which when worn with use we throw away.

Note that the eating of flesh is not only physically against nature, but it also makes us spiritually coarse and gross by reason of satiety and surfeit.

Custom is almost a second nature.

Nature without learning is blind, learning apart from nature is fractional, and practice in the absence of both is aimless.

Man is neither by birth nor disposition a savage, nor of unsocial habits, but only becomes so by indulging in vices contrary to his nature.

Socrates said he was not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.

An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.