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“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.”

Plutarch book Moralia

I, 4
Moralia, Of Eating of Flesh
Context: 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. And then we fancy that the voices it utters and screams forth to us are nothing else but certain inarticulate sounds and noises, and not the several deprecations, entreaties, and pleadings of each of them.

“Music, to create harmony, must investigate discord.”

Plutarch

“It is a thing of no great difficulty to raise objections against another man's oration,—nay, it is a very easy matter; but to produce a better in its place is a work extremely troublesome.”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

Of Hearing, 6
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Source: Parallel Lives

“When some were saying that if Cæsar should march against the city they could not see what forces there were to resist him, Pompey replied with a smile, bidding them be in no concern, "for whenever I stamp my foot in any part of Italy there will rise up forces enough in an instant, both horse and foot."”

Plutarch

Life of Pompey
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“When Demaratus was asked whether he held his tongue because he was a fool or for want of words, he replied, "A fool cannot hold his tongue."”

Plutarch

Of Demaratus
Laconic Apophthegms

“A very bold political measure of Lycurgus is his redistribution of the land. For there was a dreadful inequality in this regard, the city was heavily burdened with indigent and helpless people, and wealth was wholly concentrated in the hands of a few. Determined, therefore, to banish insolence and envy and crime and luxury, and those yet more deep-seated and afflictive diseases of the state, poverty and wealth, he persuaded his fellow-citizens to make one parcel of all their territory and divide it up anew, and to live with one another on a basis of entire uniformity and equality in the means of subsistence, seeking preëminence through virtue alone, assured that there was no other difference or inequality between man and man than that which was established by blame for base actions and praise for good ones.”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

Lycurgus, sec. 8. The bolded phrase is often quoted in a paraphrase by Ugo Foscolo: "Wealth and poverty are the oldest and most deadly ailments of all republics" (Le ricchezze e la povertà sono le più antiche e mortali infermità delle repubbliche), Monitore Italiano, 5 February 1798.
Parallel Lives

“Themistocles said that he certainly could not make use of any stringed instrument; could only, were a small and obscure city put into his hands, make it great and glorious.”

Plutarch

Life of Themistocles

“Lysander said, "Where the lion's skin will not reach, it must be pieced with the fox's."”

Plutarch

60 Lysander
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders

“After the battle in Pharsalia, when Pompey was fled, one Nonius said they had seven eagles left still, and advised to try what they would do. "Your advice," said Cicero, "were good if we were to fight jackdaws."”

Plutarch

Cicero
Roman Apophthegms

“There are two sentences inscribed upon the Delphic oracle, hugely accommodated to the usages of man's life: "Know thyself," and "Nothing too much;" and upon these all other precepts depend.”

Plutarch

Consolation to Apollonius

“From Themistocles began the saying, "He is a second Hercules."”

Plutarch

Life of Theseus, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Even a nod from a person who is esteemed is of more force than a thousand arguments or studied sentences from others.”

Plutarch

Life of Phocion
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“As geographers, Sosius, crowd into the edges of their maps parts of the world which they do not know about, adding notes in the margin to the effect that beyond this lies nothing but sandy deserts full of wild beasts, and unapproachable bogs.”

Plutarch

Life of Theseus, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Pythias once, scoffing at Demosthenes, said that his arguments smelt of the lamp.”

Plutarch

Life of Demosthenes
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“When Hermodotus in his poems described Antigonus as the son of Helios, "My valet-de-chambre," said he, "is not aware of this."”

Plutarch

Of Isis and Osiris
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“To Harmodius, descended from the ancient Harmodius, when he reviled Iphicrates [a shoemaker's son] for his mean birth, "My nobility," said he, "begins in me, but yours ends in you."”

Plutarch

54 Iphicrates
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders

“Pompey bade Sylla recollect that more worshipped the rising than the setting sun.”

Plutarch

Life of Pompey
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)