Plutarch
Plutarch
Plutarch; c. AD 46 – AD 120) was a Greek historian, biographer, and essayist, known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia. He is classified as a Middle Platonist. Plutarch's surviving works were written in Greek, but intended for both Greek and Roman readers...
NationalityGreek
ProfessionPhilosopher
may gains strange
The process may seem strange and yet it is very true. I did not so much gain the knowledge of things by the words, as words by the experience I had of things.
country unjust firsts
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.
memories may painful
Rather I fear on the contrary that while we banish painful thoughts we may banish memory as well.
men wife world
Foreign lady once remarked to the wife of a Spartan commander that the women of Sparta were the only women in the world who could rule men. "We are the only women who raise men," the Spartan lady replied....
children study whipping
Children are to be won to follow liberal studies by exhortations and rational motives, and on no account to be forced thereto by whipping.
would-be ifs
If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes.
might wells breaths
Hesiod might as well have kept his breath to cool his pottage.
happiness lying men
We rich men count our felicity and happiness to lie in these superfluities, and not in those necessary things.
lamps argument witness
Demosthenes, when taunted by Pytheas that all his arguments "smelled of the lamp," replied, "Yes, but your lamp and mine, my friend, do not witness the same labours.
life men measure-of-a-man
The measure of a man's life is the well spending of it, and not the length.
art philosophy art-of-living
Philosophy is the art of living.
wise popularity please
To please the many is to displease the wise.
luxury mind use
Poverty is dishonorable, not in itself, but when it is a proof of laziness, intemperance, luxury, and carelessness; whereas in a person that is temperate, industrious, just and valiant, and who uses all his virtues for the public good, it shows a great and lofty mind.
character giving flattery
It is no flattery to give a friend a due character; for commendation is as much the duty of a friend as reprehension.