Quotes from book
Parallel Lives
Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, commonly called Parallel Lives or Plutarch's Lives, is a series of 48 biographies of famous men, arranged in tandem to illuminate their common moral virtues or failings, probably written at the beginning of the second century AD. The surviving Parallel Lives comprises 23 pairs of biographies, each pair consisting of one Greek and one Roman of similar destiny, such as Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, or Demosthenes and Cicero. It is a work of considerable importance, not only as a source of information about the individuals described, but also about the times in which they lived.
Of Hearing, 6
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Source: 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
“So very difficult a matter is it to trace and find out the truth of anything by history.”
Parallel Lives, Pericles
“Moral good is a practical stimulus; it is no sooner seen than it inspires an impulse to practise.”
Parallel Lives, Pericles
What more valuable for the elevation of our own character?
Timoleon
Parallel Lives
“For my part, I had rather be the first man among these fellows than the second man in Rome.”
Parallel Lives, Caesar
“Go on, my friend, and fear nothing; you carry Cæsar and his fortunes in your boat.”
Parallel Lives, Caesar
“Be ruled by time, the wisest counsellor of all.”
Parallel Lives, Pericles
