521 Quotes by Plutarch

Lysander, when Dionysius sent him two gowns, and bade him choose which he would carry to his daughter, said, "She can choose best," and so took both away with him.

The state of life is most happy where superfluities are not required and necessities are not wanting.

He is a fool who lets slip a bird in the hand for a bird in the bush.

A physician, after he had felt the pulse of Pausanias, and considered his constitution, saying, "He ails nothing," "It is because, sir," he replied, "I use none of your physic.

Cato used to assert that wise men profited more by fools than fools by wise men; for that wise men avoided the faults of fools, but that fools would not imitate the good examples of wise men.

I have heard that Tiberius used to say that that man was ridiculous, who after sixth years, appealed to a physician.

It is a difficult task, O citizens, to make speeches to the belly, which has no ears.

They are wrong who think that politics is like an ocean voyage or a military campaign, something to be done with some particular end in view, something which leaves off as soon as that end is reached. It is not a public chore, to be got over with. It is a way of life. It is the life of a domesticated political and social creature who is born with a love for public life, with a desire for honor, with a feeling for his fellows; and it lasts as long as need be.

There is no stronger test of a person's character than power and authority, exciting as they do every passion, and discovering every latent vice.