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Plutarch Quotes

Total quotes: 25
“Know how to listen, and you will profit even from those who talk badly.”
— Plutarch, Untitled
Tagged: Listening, How To Be A Better Human, How To Analyze Conversations
“The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.”
— Plutarch, On Vessels Filled and Fires Kindled
Tagged: Mind, Knowledge, Creativity, Wisdom
“I have done wrong! I have traded a vast kingdom for a fleeting pleasure!”
— Plutarch, Essays
Tagged: strategy
“[Aesop to Solon] 'I suppose when we talk to kings we should tell them either as little as possible or else what they most want to be told.'

'Not at all, either as little as possible or else what they most need told.”
— Plutarch, The Rise and Fall of Athens: Nine Greek Lives
Tagged: Life
“The fact that she has gone to a place of no pain ought not to be a source of pain to us. Why should she cause us to suffer if there's nothing that can now cause her pain?”
— Plutarch, Plutarch's Lives, Volume I
Tagged: Life
“If a man was an excellent piper he must be worthless as a man. Otherwise he wouldn't be so good a piper.”
— Plutarch, William Shakespeare, Pericles
Tagged: Life
“Discover the system end of the art. Through which this admirable advantage is gained by those who find it impossible to live without an enemy.”
— Plutarch, Complete Works
Tagged: Obstacles
“It is a trait of the man of sense to derive profit even from his enemies.”
— Plutarch, Complete Works
Tagged: Opposites
“I fail to see any reason why, when this behavior pleased us during her life, it should trouble us when we recall it now...[it should] bring us not just more but a great deal more pleasure than distress.”
— Plutarch, Plutarch's Lives, Volume I
Tagged: Life
“You see, my dear, we will seem to regret our child was ever born if we find more to complain about now than in the situation before her birth.”
— Plutarch, Plutarch's Lives, Volume I
Tagged: Life
“[Eurybiades] 'You know, Themistocles, at the games they trash anybody who starts before the signal.'

[Themistocles] 'Yes, but they do not crown anybody who gets left at the post.'”
— Plutarch, Life of Themistocles
Tagged: Life
“As long as there are others who would gladly choose your fate, even including our present state [the death of a child], it is awful of you, the bearer of that fate, to complain and grumble.”
— Plutarch, Essays (Penguin Classics)
Tagged: Life
“Whenever I throw him at wrestling he beats me by arguing that he was never down, and he can even make the spectators believe.”
— Anthony Podlecki, Plutarch, Perikles and his Circle
Tagged: Life
“When people see a friend's house on fire, they rush to put it out, when a friend's mind is on fire, they bring fuel.”
— Plutarch, Plutarch's Lives, Volume I
Tagged: Life
“You will regard them as doing what comes naturally to them (as dogs are when they bark).”
— Plutarch, Essays (Penguin Classics)
Tagged: Life
“When trouble does not ensue immediately for bad people after any given crime, but comes later, they classify it as a piece of bad luck...”
— Euripides, Essays
Tagged: Life
“'How shall I defend myself against my enemy?'

'By proving yourself good and honorable.'”
— Diogenes, Plutarch, Conflict, Community, and Honor
Tagged: Honor
“Don't be alarmed: justice won't come up to you or any other unjust person and stab you in the guts. No, it comes with silent and steady trend and grabs criminals when they don't expect it.”
— Euripides, Essays
Tagged: Life
“So look at your enemy and see whether in spite of his being in most respects harmful and difficult to manage, he does not in some way or another afford you means of getting hold of him and using him as you can use no one else and so can be of profit to you.”
— Plutarch, Complete Works
Tagged: Obstacles
“Laomedon practiced long distance running by the advice of his physicians to ward off some disease of the spleen and then, after restoring his health in this way, entered the great games and became one of the best runners in the long course.”
— Plutarch, Complete Works
Tagged: strength
“You have obtained Sparta, so do it credit.”
— Euripides, Essays
Tagged: Life
“In Greece, wise men spoke on public affairs but fools decided them.”
— Plutarch, The Rise and Fall of Athens: Nine Greek Lives
Tagged: Life
“Wise men are able to make a fitting use of their enemies.”
— Plutarch, Complete Works
Tagged: Opposites, Use Against
“Some of Alexander the Great's successors resembled him 'with their purpose customers, their bodyguards, the way they copied the poise of his neck which as tilted slightly to the left, and their loud voices in conversation, but Pyrrhus, and Pyrrhus alone, in arms and action.'”
— Plutarch, The Rise of Rome (Penguin Classics)
Tagged: Life
“For possibly there is no need of any compulsion or menace in dealing with the multitude, but when they see with their own eyes a conspicuous and shining example of virtue in the life of their ruler, they will of their own accord walk in wisdom's ways, and unite with him in conforming themselves to a blameless and blessed life of friendship and mutual concord, attended by righteousness and temperance.”
— Plutarch, Numa
Tagged: Importance of Setting A Good Example, Governing Through Good Role Models
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