521 Quotes by Plutarch

He who reflects on another man’s want of breeding, shows he wants it as much himself.

It were better to have no opinion of God at all than such a one as is unworthy of him; for the one is only belief – the other contempt.

Even those virtues which nature had denied him were imitated by him so successfully that he won more confidence than those who actually possessed them.

Memory: what wonders it performs in preserving and storing up things gone by – or rather, things that are.

Thus ambitious spirits in a commonwealth, when they transgress their bounds, are apt to do more harm than good.

Once being hard pressed in wrestling, and fearing to be thrown, he got the hand of his antagonist to his mouth, and bit it with all his force; and when the other loosed his hold presently, and said, “You bite, Alcibiades, like a woman.” “No,” replied he, “like a lion.” Another.

The truly pious must negotiate a difficult course between the precipice of godlessness and the marsh of superstition.

Reason speaks and feeling bites.

When a man’s eyes are sore his friends do not let him finger them, however much he wishes to, nor do they themselves touch the inflammation: But a man sunk in grief suffers every chance comer to stir and augment his affliction like a running sore; and by reason of the fingering and consequent irritation it hardens into a serious and intractable evil.