Quotes from Plutarch

Character is simply habit long enough continued.

Time is the soul of this world.

Those who aim at great deeds must also suffer greatly.

To be ignorant of the lives of the most celebrated men of antiquity is to continue in a state of childhood.

As to Caesar, when he was called upon, he gave no testimony against Clodius, nor did he affirm that he was certain of any injury done to his bed. He only said, "He had divorced Pompeia because the wife of Caesar ought not only to be clear of such a crime, but of the very suspicion of it."

The present offers itself to our touch for only an instant of time and then eludes the senses.

Words will build no walls.

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

Fortune had favoured me in this war that I feared, the rather, that some tempest would follow so favourable a gale.

Lysander said that the law spoke too softly to be heard in such a noise of war.

Wisdom is neither gold, nor silver, nor fame, nor wealth, nor health, nor strength, nor beauty.

Silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech.

Nature and wisdom never are at strife.

Courage and wisdom are, indeed, rarities amongst men, but of all that is good, a just man it would seem is the most scarce.

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

No man ever wetted clay and then left it as if there would be bricks by chance and fortune.

Grief is like a physical pain which must be allowed to subside somewhat on its own before medical treatment is applied.

God is the brave man's hope, and not the coward's excuse.

For the wise man, every day is a festival.

As bees extract honey from thyme, the strongest and driest of herbs, so sensible men often get advantage and profit from the most awkward circumstances.

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.

Nothing is harder to direct than a man in prosperity; nothing more easily managed that one is adversity.

The measure of a man's life is the well spending of it, and not the length.

I had rather men should ask why my statue is not set up, than why it is.