Quotes from Plutarch

In politics, we must not escape a single master…but many masters…contentiousness, love of glory, the desire to be first and greatest, and the sickness that produces envy, jealousy, and dissension in abundance.

After giving marriage such traits of reserve and decorum, he none the less freed men from the empty and womanish passion of jealous possession, by making it honourable for them, while keeping the marriage relation free from all wanton irregularities, to share with other worthy men in the begetting of children

So reason makes all sorts of life easy, and every change pleasant. Alexander wept when he heard from Anaxarchus that there was an infinite number of worlds, and his friends asking him if any accident had befallen him, he returns this answer: Do not you think it a matter worthy of lamentation, that, when there is such a vast multitude of them, we have not yet conquered one? But Crates with only his scrip and tattered cloak laughed out his life jocosely, as if he had been always at a festival.

Remember what Simonides said, that he never repented that he had held his tongue, but often that he had spoken.

Men, whither is your course taking you, who give all possible attention to the acquiring of money but give small thought to your sons to whom ye are to leave it?

it is useful, or rather it is necessary, not to be indifferent about acquiring the works of earlier writers, but to make a collection of these, like a set of tools in farming. For the corresponding tool of education is the use of books, and by their means it has come to pass that we are able to study knowledge at its source.

Those who aim at great deeds must also suffer greatly.

Nevertheless, it is said that the people of Massalia fenced their vineyards round with the bones of the fallen, and that the soil, after the bodies had wasted away in it and the rains had fallen all winter upon it, grew so rich and became so full to its depths of the putrefied matter that sank into it, that it produced an exceeding great harvest in after years, and confirmed the saying of Archilochus? that "fields are fattened" by such a process.

All men, while they are awake, are in one common world; but each of them, when he is asleep, is in a world of his own.

Whenever two notes are sounded in accord the tune is carried by the bass; and in like manner every activity in a virtuous household is carried on by both parties in agreement, but discloses the husband's leadership and preferences.

those who were getting so much money from Caesar urged the senate to give him money as if he had none, nay rather, they forced it to do so, though it groaned over its own decrees.

Ciascuna per la sua bellezza allora era immediatamente antica, oggi, dopo molto tempo, è recente, nuova e rigogliosa. Sulle opere di Pericle fiorisce come una giovinezza perenne, esse si conservano allo sguardo indenni nel tempo, quasi posseggano infuso un respiro sempre fresco e un'anima che non conosce vecchiezza.

For they either believe their colleagues to be their equals and so they fight against them; or they believe them to be superior and so they envy them; or they believe them inferior and so they despise them. We must, however, pay court to the colleague who is superior, make the inferior better, and honor the equal.

We ought indeed to shrink from and feel shame at what is base; but the nature which is over-cautious to avoid blame may be gentle and kindly, but cannot be great.

Best rear no lion in your state, 'tis true; But treat him like a lion if you do.

Another Spartan, when he saw men sitting on stools in a lavatory, declared: "May I never sit where it is impossible for me to get up and offer my seat to an older man.

Others have seen the assassination as a useful reminder of the futility of such attempts at direct action. For what did it achieve? If the assassins had really wanted to quash the rise of one-man rule in Rome, if they wanted to kill the tyranny as well as the tyrant, they were strikingly unsuccessful.

For if they do not receive the seed of good doctrines and share with their husbands in intellectual advancement, they, left to themselves, conceive many untoward ideas and low designs and emotions.

he would yet do full well to wait for that wisest of all counsellors, Time.

The art of wise administration consist in making certain concessions and granting that which will please the people, while demanding in return an obedience and cooperation which will benefit the whole community. p235-236

And yet," said he, "how can a man take care of his own horse or furbish up his spear and helmet, if he is unaccustomed to using his hands on his own dear person? Know ye not," said he, "that the end and object of conquest is to avoid doing the same thing as the conquered?

Or is it that of all numbers nine is the first square from the odd and perfect triad, while eight is the first cube from the even dyad? Now a man should be four-square, eminent, and perfect; but a woman, like a cube, should be stable, domestic, and difficult to remove from her place. And

If we compare Sappho's poems with Anakreon's or the Sibyl's oracles with the prophet Bakis, then it is clear that the art of poetry or of prophecy is not one art practiced by men and another when practiced by women. It is the same. Can anyone protest this conclusion?

In whatsoever countrey men are bred (I know not by what sweetnesse of it led), They nourish in their minds a glad desire, Unto their native homes for to retire