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Plutarch Quotes
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Plutarch , later named, upon becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus, was a Greek biographer and essayist, known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia.

He is classified as a Middle Platonist. Plutarch's surviving works were written in Greek, but intended for both Greek and Roman readers. Wikipedia  

✵ 46 AC – 127   •   Other names Plútarchos z Chairóneie
Plutarch photo
Plutarch: 251   quotes 14   likes

Plutarch Quotes

“Good fortune will elevate even petty minds, and give them the appearance of a certain greatness and stateliness, as from their high place they look down upon the world; but the truly noble and resolved spirit raises itself, and becomes more conspicuous in times of disaster and ill fortune.”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

Eumenes, sec. 9
Parallel Lives

World , Appearance , Time

“Aristodemus, a friend of Antigonus, supposed to be a cook's son, advised him to moderate his gifts and expenses. "Thy words," said he, "Aristodemus, smell of the apron."”

Plutarch

44 Antigonus I
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders

Cooking

“Moral habits, induced by public practices, are far quicker in making their way into men's private lives, than the failings and faults of individuals are in infecting the city at large.”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

Lysander, sec. 17
Parallel Lives

Men , Way

“To sing the same tune, as the saying is, is in everything cloying and offensive; but men are generally pleased with variety.”

Plutarch book Moralia

Moralia, Of the Training of Children

Men , Singing

“Young men," said Cæsar, "hear an old man to whom old men hearkened when he was young.”

Plutarch

Cæsar Augustus
Roman Apophthegms

Men

“Why does pouring oil on the sea make it clear and calm? Is it for that the winds, slipping the smooth oil, have no force, nor cause any waves?”

Plutarch

Symposiacs, book viii. Question IX
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Sea

“Laughing at his own son, who got his mother, and by his mother's means his father also, to indulge him, he told him that he had the most power of any one in Greece: "For the Athenians command the rest of Greece, I command the Athenians, your mother commands me, and you command your mother."”

Plutarch

Life of Themistocles

“Being summoned by the Athenians out of Sicily to plead for his life, Alcibiades absconded, saying that that criminal was a fool who studied a defence when he might fly for it.”

Plutarch

51 Alcibiades
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders

Life , Fools , Study , Flying

“For my part, I had rather be the first man among these fellows than the second man in Rome.”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

Parallel Lives, Caesar

Parting

“Agesilaus being invited once to hear a man who admirably imitated the nightingale, he declined, saying he had heard the nightingale itself.”

Plutarch

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

“Yet through Alexander (the Great) Bactria and the Caucasus learned to revere the gods of the Greeks … Alexander established more than seventy cities among savage tribes, and sowed all Asia with Greek magistracies … Egypt would not have its Alexandria, nor Mesopotamia its Seleucia, nor Sogdiana its Prophthasia, nor India its Bucephalia, nor the Caucasus a Greek city, for by the founding of cities in these places savagery was extinguished and the worse element, gaining familiarity with the better, changed under its influence.”

Plutarch book Moralia

On the Fortune of Alexander, I, 328D, 329A Loeb, F.C. Babbitt
Moralia, Others

God , Learning , Change

“Eurybiades lifting up his staff as if he were going to strike, Themistocles said, "Strike, if you will; but hear."”

Plutarch

Life of Themistocles

“Cato said, "I had rather men should ask why my statue is not set up, than why it is."”

Plutarch

Political Precepts
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Men

“Leo Byzantius said, "What would you do, if you saw my wife, who scarce reaches up to my knees?… Yet," went he on, "as little as we are, when we fall out with each other, the city of Byzantium is not big enough to hold us."”

Plutarch

Political Precepts
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Anacharsis said a man's felicity consists not in the outward and visible favours and blessings of Fortune, but in the inward and unseen perfections and riches of the mind.”

Plutarch

The Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, 11
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Perfection

“There were two brothers called Both and Either; perceiving Either was a good, understanding, busy fellow, and Both a silly fellow and good for little, Philip said, "Either is both, and Both is neither."”

Plutarch

35 Philip
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders

Understanding , Business

“Go on, my friend, and fear nothing; you carry Cæsar and his fortunes in your boat.”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

Parallel Lives, Caesar

Fear

“Did you not know, then, that to-day Lucullus sups with Lucullus?”

Plutarch

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

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

Plutarch

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

War , Law

“Phocion compared the speeches of Leosthenes to cypress-trees. "They are tall," said he, "and comely, but bear no fruit."”

Plutarch

56 Phocion
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders

Tree

“Xenophon says that there is no sound more pleasing than one's own praises.”

Plutarch

Whether an Aged Man ought to meddle in State Affairs
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“We are more sensible of what is done against custom than against Nature.”

Plutarch

Of Eating of Flesh, Tract 1
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Nature

“For many, as Cranton tells us, and those very wise men, not now but long ago, have deplored the condition of human nature, esteeming life a punishment, and to be born a man the highest pitch of calamity; this, Aristotle tells us, Silenus declared when he was brought captive to Midas.”

Plutarch

Consolation to Apollonius

Life , Men , Nature

“Anacharsis coming to Athens, knocked at Solon's door, and told him that he, being a stranger, was come to be his guest, and contract a friendship with him; and Solon replying, "It is better to make friends at home," Anacharsis replied, "Then you that are at home make friendship with me."”

Plutarch

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

Friendship , Home

“When Demosthenes was asked what was the first part of oratory, he answered, "Action;" and which was the second, he replied, "Action;" and which was the third, he still answered, "Action."”

Plutarch

Lives of the Ten Orators
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Parting

“Abstain from beans; that is, keep out of public offices, for anciently the choice of the officers of state was made by beans.”

Plutarch book Moralia

Moralia, Of the Training of Children

“He made one of Antipater's recommendation a judge; and perceiving afterwards that his hair and beard were coloured, he removed him, saying, "I could not think one that was faithless in his hair could be trusty in his deeds."”

Plutarch

40 Philip
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders

Thinking

“Nothing made the horse so fat as the king's eye.”

Plutarch book Moralia

Moralia, Of the Training of Children

Horse

“When Philip had news brought him of divers and eminent successes in one day, "O Fortune!" said he, "for all these so great kindnesses do me some small mischief."”

Plutarch

34 Philip
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders

Success

“Let us not wonder if something happens which never was before, or if something doth not appear among us with which the ancients were acquainted.”

Plutarch

Symposiacs, book viii. Question IX
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Appearance

“You ask of me then for what reason it was that Pythagoras abstained from eating of flesh. I for my part do much admire in what humor, with what soul or reason, the first man with his mouth touched slaughter, and reached to his lips the flesh of a dead animal, and having set before people courses of ghastly corpses and ghosts, could give those parts the names of meat and victuals, that but a little before lowed, cried, moved, and saw; how his sight could endure the blood of slaughtered, flayed, and mangled bodies; how his smell could bear their scent; and how the very nastiness happened not to offend the taste, while it chewed the sores of others, and participated of the saps and juices of deadly wounds.”

Plutarch book Moralia

I, 1
Moralia, Of Eating of Flesh

People , Soul , Animals , Parting

“Dionysius the Elder, being asked whether he was at leisure, he replied, "God forbid that it should ever befall me!"”

Plutarch

32 Dionysius
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders

God

“Thus they let their anger and fury take from them the sense of humanity, and demonstrated that no beast is more savage than man when possessed with power answerable to his rage.”

Plutarch

"The Life of Cicero"

Sense , Rage , Anger

“Alcibiades had a very handsome dog, that cost him seven thousand drachmas; and he cut off his tail, "that," said he, "the Athenians may have this story to tell of me, and may concern themselves no further with me."”

Plutarch

50 Alcibiades
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders

Dogs

“To one commending an orator for his skill in amplifying petty matters, Agesilaus said, "I do not think that shoemaker a good workman that makes a great shoe for a little foot."”

Plutarch

Of Agesilaus the Great
Laconic Apophthegms

Shoe , Thinking

“Antagoras the poet was boiling a conger, and Antigonus, coming behind him as he was stirring his skillet, said, "Do you think, Antagoras, that Homer boiled congers when he wrote the deeds of Agamemnon?" Antagoras replied, "Do you think, O king, that Agamemnon, when he did such exploits, was a peeping in his army to see who boiled congers?"”

Plutarch

46 Antigonus I
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders

Thinking

“The pilot cannot mitigate the billows or calm the winds.”

Plutarch

On the Tranquillity of the Mind
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Authority and place demonstrate and try the tempers of men, by moving every passion and discovering every frailty.”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

Demosthenes and Cicero, sec. 3
Parallel Lives

Men , Passion

“Ought a man to be confident that he deserves his good fortune, and think much of himself when he has overcome a nation, or city, or empire; or does fortune give this as an example to the victor also of the uncertainty of human affairs, which never continue in one stay? For what time can there be for us mortals to feel confident, when our victories over others especially compel us to dread fortune, and while we are exulting, the reflection that the fatal day comes now to one, now to another, in regular succession, dashes our joy.”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

Aemilius, sec. 27
Parallel Lives

Feeling , Confidence , Thinking , Time

“He said that in his whole life he most repented of three things: one was that he had trusted a secret to a woman; another, that he went by water when he might have gone by land; the third, that he had remained one whole day without doing any business of moment.”

Plutarch

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

Life , Secret , Business , Water

“You speak truth," said Themistocles; "I should never have been famous if I had been of Seriphus; nor you, had you been of Athens.”

Plutarch

Life of Themistocles

Truth

“Said Periander, "Hesiod might as well have kept his breath to cool his pottage."”

Plutarch

The Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, 14
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Lamachus chid a captain for a fault; and when he had said he would do so no more, "Sir," said he, "in war there is no room for a second miscarriage." Said one to Iphicrates, "What are ye afraid of?" "Of all speeches," said he, "none is so dishonourable for a general as ‘I should not have thought of it.'"”

Plutarch

52 Iphicrates
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders

War

“Statesmen are not only liable to give an account of what they say or do in public, but there is a busy inquiry made into their very meals, beds, marriages, and every other sportive or serious action.”

Plutarch

Political Precepts
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Marriage , Business

“What spectator… would not exclaim… that through Fortune the foreign host was prevailing beyond its deserts, but through Virtue the Hellenes were holding out beyond their ability? And if the ones (i. e., the enemy) gains the upper hand, this will be the work of Fortune or of some jealous deity or of divine retribution; but if the others (i. e., the Greeks) prevail, it will be Virtue and daring, friendship and fidelity, that will win the guerdon of victory? These were, in fact, the only support that Alexander had with him at this time, since Fortune had put a barrier between him and the rest of his forces and equipment, fleets, horse, and camp. Finally, the Macedonians routed the barbarians, and, when they had fallen, pulled down their city on their heads.”

Plutarch book Moralia

On the Fortune of Alexander, II, 344 e-f, Loeb
Moralia, Others

Friendship , Support , Time , Victory

“T is a wise saying, Drive on your own track.”

Plutarch book Moralia

Moralia, Of the Training of Children

“Pythagoras, when he was asked what time was, answered that it was the soul of this world.”

Plutarch

Platonic Questions, viii, 4
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

World , Soul , Time

“The most perfect soul, says Heraclitus, is a dry light, which flies out of the body as lightning breaks from a cloud.”

Plutarch

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

Soul , Light , Perfection

“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."”

Plutarch

Of Plistarchus
Laconic Apophthegms

Life , Dead

“Marius said, "I see the cure is not worth the pain."”

Plutarch

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

Pain