Quotes from book
Parallel Lives

Parallel Lives

PlutarchOriginal title Βίοι Παράλληλοι

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.

“Using the proverb frequently in their mouths who enter upon dangerous and bold attempts, "The die is cast," he took the river.”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

Parallel Lives, Caesar

“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

“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

“So very difficult a matter is it to trace and find out the truth of anything by history.”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

Parallel Lives, Pericles

“Empire may be gained by gold, not gold by empire. It used, indeed, to be a proverb that "It is not Philip, but Philip's gold that takes the cities of Greece."”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

Aemilius, sec. 12
Parallel Lives

“Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little.”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

Sertorius, sec. 16
Parallel Lives

“Moral good is a practical stimulus; it is no sooner seen than it inspires an impulse to practise.”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

Parallel Lives, Pericles

“Thus our judgments, if they do not borrow from reason and philosophy a fixity and steadiness of purpose in their acts, are easily swayed and influenced by the praise or blame of others, which make us distrust our own opinions.”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

Timoleon, sec. 6
Parallel Lives

“By the study of their biographies, we receive each man as a guest into our minds, and we seem to understand their character as the result of a personal acquaintance, because we have obtained from their acts the best and most important means of forming an opinion about them. "What greater pleasure could'st thou gain than this?"”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

What more valuable for the elevation of our own character?
Timoleon
Parallel Lives

“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

“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

“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

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

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

Parallel Lives, Caesar

“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

“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

“And it is said that when he took his seat for the first time under the golden canopy on the royal throne, Demaratus the Corinthian, a well-meaning man and a friend of Alexander's, as he had been of Alexander's father, burst into tears, as old men will, and declared that those Hellenes were deprived of great pleasure who had died before seeing Alexander seated on the throne of Dareius.”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

Alexander, 37, 7 (Loeb)
Parallel Lives

“Be ruled by time, the wisest counsellor of all.”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

Parallel Lives, Pericles

“Medicine, to produce health, has to examine disease; and music, to create harmony, must investigate discord.”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

Demetrius, sec. 1
Parallel Lives

“Valour, however unfortunate, commands great respect even from enemies: but the Romans despise cowardice, even though it be prosperous.”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

Aemilius, sec. 26
Parallel Lives

“A Roman divorced from his wife, being highly blamed by his friends, who demanded, "Was she not chaste? Was she not fair? Was she not fruitful?" holding out his shoe, asked them whether it was not new and well made. "Yet," added he, "none of you can tell where it pinches me."”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

Aemilius Paulus, sec. 29
Parallel Lives

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ancient Greek historian and philosopher None

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ancient Greek philosopher None

Isocrates photo

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ancient greek rhetorician None

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