521 Quotes by Plutarch

A traveller at Sparta, standing long upon one leg, said to a Lacedaemonian, “I do not believe you can do as much.” “True,” said he, “but every goose can.”

A Spartan, seeing a man taking up a collection for the gods, said that he did not think much of gods who were poorer than himself.

I would rather excel in the knowledge of what is excellent than the extent of my power or possessions.

It is a thing of no great difficulty to raise objections against another man’s oration, it is a very easy matter; but to produce a better in it’s place is a work extremely troublesome.

Come and take them.

In fact Cleopatra was indebted to Fulvia for teaching Antony to obey a wife’s authority, for by the time he met her he had already been quite broken in and schooled to accept the way of women.

The mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting. EOQ.

But the Lacedaemonians, who make it their first principle of action to serve their country’s interest, know not any thing to be just or unjust by any measure but that.

When someone asked Demaratus why the Spartans disgrace those who throw away their shields but not those who abandon their breastplates or helmets, he said that they put the latter on for their own sakes but the shield for the sake of the whole line.