Plutarch - Man Quotes

52 Sourced Quotes

View all Plutarch Quotes
Friendship is the most pleasant of all things, and nothing more glads the heart of man.

Plutarch
I, for my own part, had much rather people should say of me that there neither is nor ever was such a man as Plutarch, than that they should say, "Plutarch is an unsteady, fickle, froward, vindictive, and touchy fellow."

Plutarch
Poverty is never dishonourable in itself, but only when it is a mark of sloth, intemperance, extravagance, or thoughtlessness. When, on the other hand, it is the handmaid of a sober, industrious, righteous, and brave man, who devotes all his powers to the service of the people, it is the sign of a lofty spirit that harbours no mean thoughts

Plutarch
There are two sentences inscribed upon the Delphic oracle, hugely accommodated to the usages of man's life: "Know thyself," 68 and "Nothing too much;" and upon these all other precepts depend.

Plutarch
Certainly the people's insistence that their candidates should present themselves ungirt and without a tunic had nothing to do with any suspicion of bribery, for it was not until long afterwards that the abuse of buying and selling votes crept in and money began to play an important part in determining the elections. Later on, however, this process of corruption spread to the law courts and to the army, and finally, when even the sword became enslaved by the power of gold, the republic was subjected to the rule of the emperors. For it has rightly been said that the man who first offers banquets and bribes to the people is the first to destroy their liberties.

Plutarch
"Young men," said Caesar, "hear an old man to whom old men hearkened when he was young."

Plutarch
What is bigger than an elephant? But this also is become man's plaything, and a spectacle at public solemnities; and it learns to skip, dance, and kneel.

Plutarch
Themistocles said to Antiphales, "Time, young man, has taught us both a lesson".

Plutarch
Like the man who threw a stone at a bitch, but hit his step-mother, on which he exclaimed, "Not so bad!"

Plutarch
By the study of their biographies, we receive each man as a guest into our minds, and we seem to understand their character as the result of a personal acquaintance, because we have obtained from their acts the best and most important means of forming an opinion about them. "What greater pleasure could'st thou gain than this?" What more valuable for the elevation of our own character?

Plutarch
The man who is completely wise and virtuous has no need of glory, except so far as it disposes and eases his way to action by the greater trust that it procures him.

Plutarch
No man ever wetted clay and then left it, as if there would be bricks by chance and fortune.

Plutarch
The first man... ventured to call food and nourishment the parts that had a little before bellowed and cried, moved and lived. How could his eyes endure the slaughter when throats were slit and hides flayed and limbs torn from limb? How could his nose endure the stench? How was it that the pollution did not turn away his taste, which made contact with the sores of others and sucked juices and serums from mortal wounds?

Plutarch
It is a difficult thing for a man to resist the natural necessity of mortal passions.

Plutarch
The obligations of law and equity reach only to mankind; but kindness and beneficence should be extended to the creatures of every species, and these will flow from the breast of a true man, as streams that issue from the living fountain.

Plutarch
The measure of a man's life is the well spending of it, and not the length.

Plutarch
Nature without learning is like a blind man; learning without nature is like the maimed; practice without both these is incomplete. As in agriculture a good soil is first sought for, then a skilful husbandman, and then good seed: in the same way nature corresponds to the soil; the teacher to the husbandman; precepts and instruction to the seed.

Plutarch
When Eudæmonidas heard a philosopher arguing that only a wise man can be a good general, "This is a wonderful speech," said he; "but he that saith it never heard the sound of trumpets."

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

Plutarch
Agesilaus being invited once to hear a man who admirably imitated the nightingale, he declined, saying he had heard the nightingale itself.

Plutarch
He preferred an honest man that wooed his daughter, before a rich man. "I would rather," said Themistocles, "have a man that wants money than money that wants a man."

Plutarch
I am writing biography, not history, and the truth is that the most brilliant exploits often tell us nothing of the virtues or vices of the men who performed them, while on the other hand a chance remark or a joke may reveal far more of a man's character than the mere feat of winning battles in which thousands fall, or of marshalling great armies, or laying siege to cities.

Plutarch
One made the observation of the people of Asia that they were all slaves to one man, merely because they could not pronounce that syllable No.

Plutarch
What most of all enables a man to serve the public is not wealth, but content and independence; which, requiring no superfluity at home, distracts not the mind from the common good.

Plutarch
The man who is thought to have been the first to see beneath the surface of Caesar's public policy and to fear it, as one might fear the smiling surface of the sea.
Of cicero

Plutarch
It is not reasonable that he who does not shoot should hit the mark, nor that he who does not stand fast at his post should win the day, or that the helpless man should succeed or the coward prosper.

Plutarch
When one told Plistarchus that a notorious railer spoke well of him, "I 'll lay my life," said he, "somebody hath told him I am dead, for he can speak well of no man living."

Plutarch
Menenius Agrippa concluded at length with the celebrated fable: "It once happened that all the other members of a man mutinied against the stomach, which they accused as the only idle, uncontributing part in the whole body, while the rest were put to hardships and the expense of much labour to supply and minister to its appetites."

Plutarch
As Meander says, "For our mind is God;" and as Heraclitus, "Man's genius is a deity."

Plutarch
"And this," said Caesar, "you know, young man, is more disagreeable for me to say than to do."

Plutarch