Plutarch: Man

Plutarch was ancient Greek historian and philosopher. Explore interesting quotes on man.

Plutarch: 502 quotes14 likes

“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.”

Of Bashfulness
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“And this," said Cæsar, "you know, young man, is more disagreeable for me to say than to do.”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

Parallel Lives, Caesar

“Themistocles said that a man's discourse was like to a rich Persian carpet, the beautiful figures and patterns of which can be shown only by spreading and extending it out; when it is contracted and folded up, they are obscured and lost.”

Life of Themistocles

“Both Empedocles and Heraclitus held it for a truth that man could not be altogether cleared from injustice in dealing with beasts as he now does.”

Which are the most crafty, Water or Land Animals?, 7
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“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.”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

Aemilius, sec. 19
Parallel Lives

“As Meander says, "For our mind is God;" and as Heraclitus, "Man's genius is a deity."”

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

“He preferred an honest man that wooed his daughter, before a rich man. "I would rather," said Themistocles, "have a man that wants money than money that wants a man."”

49 Themistocles
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders

“What is bigger than an elephant? But this also is become man's plaything, and a spectacle at public solemnities; and it learns to skip, dance, and kneel.”

Of Fortune
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“And when the physician said, "Sir, you are an old man," "That happens," replied Pausanias, "because you never were my doctor."”

Of Pausanias the Son of Phistoanax
Laconic Apophthegms

“It is a true proverb, that if you live with a lame man, you will learn a limp.”

Plutarch book Moralia

Moralia, Of the Training of Children

“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."”

62 Eudæmonidas
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders

“Themistocles said to Antiphales, "Time, young man, has taught us both a lesson."”

Life of Themistocles

“It is a difficult thing for a man to resist the natural necessity of mortal passions.”

Of those whom God is slow to punish
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

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

Of Fortune
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Euripides was wont to say, "Silence is an answer to a wise man."”

Of Bashfulness
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“We see that kindness or humanity has a larger field than bare justice to exercise itself in; law and justice we cannot, in the nature of things, employ on others than men; but we may extend our goodness and charity even to irrational creatures; and such acts flow from a gentle nature, as water from an abundant spring. It is doubtless the part of a kind-natured man to keep even worn-out horses and dogs, and not only take care of them when they are foals and whelps, but also when they are grown old.”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

Marcus Cato (Dryden translation)
Parallel Lives

“Menenius Agrippa concluded at length with the celebrated fable: "It once happened that all the other members of a man mutinied against the stomach, which they accused as the only idle, uncontributing part in the whole body, while the rest were put to hardships and the expense of much labour to supply and minister to its appetites."”

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

“Certainly the people's insistence that their candidates should present themselves ungirt and without a tunic had nothing to do with any suspicion of bribery, for it was not until long afterwards that the abuse of buying and selling votes crept in and money began to play an important part in determining the elections. Later on, however, this process of corruption spread to the law courts and to the army, and finally, when even the sword became enslaved by the power of gold, the republic was subjected to the rule of the emperors. For it has rightly been said that the man who first offers banquets and bribes to the people is the first to destroy their liberties.”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

Gaius Marcius (Coriolanus) 14.2, translated by Ian Scott-Kilvert, Makers of Rome: Nine Lives by Plutarch (Harmondsworth : Penguin Books 1965) ISBN 0140441581, p. 27
Parallel Lives

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

Consolation to Apollonius

“He said, that he never had feared what man could do to him, but always had feared Fortune, the most fickle and variable of all deities; and in the late war she had been so constantly present with him, like a favouring gale, that he expected now to meet with some reverse by way of retribution.”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

Aemilius, sec. 36
Parallel Lives