521 Quotes by Plutarch
- Author Plutarch
-
Quote
To make no mistakes is not in the power of man; but from their errors and mistakes the wise and good learn wisdom for the future.
- Tags
- Share
- Author Plutarch
-
Quote
Silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech.
- Tags
- Share
- Author Plutarch
-
Quote
It was natural for [Spartan women] to think and speak as Gorgo, the wife of Leonidas, is said to have done, when some foreign lady, as it would seem, told her that the women of Lacedaemon were the only women of the world who could rule men; 'With good reason,' she said, 'for we are the only women who bring forth men'.
- Tags
- Share
- Author Plutarch
-
Quote
There is nothing so imperfect, so helpless, so naked, so shapeless, so foul, as man observed at birth, to whom alone, one might almost say, Nature has given not a clean passage to the light; but, defiled with blood and covered with filth, and resembling more one just slain than one just born, he is an object for none to touch or lift up or kiss or embrace except for someone who loves with a natural affection.
- Tags
- Share
- Author Plutarch
-
Quote
These things sensibly affected Theseus, who, thinking it but just not to disregard, but rather partake of, the sufferings of his fellow citizens, offered himself for one without any lot. All else were struck with admiration for the nobleness and with love for the goodness of the act.
- Tags
- Share
- Author Plutarch
-
Quote
For fortune having hitherto seconded him in his designs, made him resolute and firm in his opinions, and the boldness of his temper raised a sort of passion in him for surmounting difficulties; as if it were not enough to be always victorious in the field, unless places and seasons and nature herself submitted to him.
- Tags
- Share
- Author Plutarch
-
Quote
When someone blamed Hecataeus the sophist because that, being invited to the public table, he had not spoken one word all supper-time, Archidamidas answered in his vindication 'He who knows how to speak, knows also when'.
- Tags
- Share
- Author Plutarch
-
Quote
Lycurgus, who ordered that a great piece of money should be but of an inconsiderable value, on the contrary would allow no discourse to be current which did not contain in few words a great deal of useful and curious sense.
- Tags
- Share
- Author Plutarch
-
Quote
While in the case of his iron money, as I have explained, Lycurgus arranged for heavy weight to be matched by low value, he did the opposite for the currency of speech. Here he developed the technique of expressing a wide range of ideas in just a few, spare words.
- Tags
- Share