521 Quotes by Plutarch

The wildest colts make the best horses.

It is wise to be silent when occasion requires, and better than to speak, though never so well.

Statesmen are not only liable to give an account of what they say or do in public, but there is a busy inquiry made into their very meals, beds, marriages, and every other sportive or serious action.

Custom is almost a second nature.

What, did you not know, then, that to-day Lucullus dines with Lucullus?

The same intelligence is required to marshal an army in battle and to order a good dinner. The first must be as formidable as possible, the second as pleasant as possible, to the participants.

Pythagoras, when he was asked what time was, answered that it was the soul of this world.

Alexander wept when he heard from Anaxarchus that there was an infinite number of worlds; and his friends asking him if any accident had befallen him, he returns this answer: "Do you not think it a matter worthy of lamentation that when there is such a vast multitude of them, we have not yet conquered one?

It is circumstance and proper measure that give an action its character, and make it either good or bad.