Top 300 Plutarch Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “The whole life of man is but a point of time; let us enjoy it.”

— Plutarch

52. “For it was not so much that by means of words I came to a complete understanding of things, as that from things I somehow had an experience which enabled me to follow the meaning of words.”

— Plutarch

53. “The whole of life is but a moment of time. It is our duty, therefore to use it, not to misuse it.”

— Plutarch

54. “For the correct analogy for the mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting.”

— Plutarch

55. “The drop hollows out the stone not by strength, but by constant falling.”

— Plutarch

56. “Choose what is best, and habit will make it pleasant and easy.”

— Plutarch

57. “Alexander esteemed it more kingly to govern himself than to conquer his enemies.”

— Plutarch

58. “For the mind does not require filling like a bottle, but rather, like wood, it only requires kindling to create in it an impulse to think independently and an ardent desire for the truth.”

— Plutarch

59. “Character is long-standing habit.”

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

61. “When the strong box contains no more both friends and flatterers shun the door.”

— Plutarch

62. “Nature without learning is blind, learning apart from nature is fractional, and practice in the absence of both is aimless.”

— Plutarch

63. “Water continually dropping will wear hard rocks hollow.”

— Plutarch

64. “Oh, what a world full of pain we create, for a little taste upon the tongue.”

— Plutarch

65. “It is wise to be silent when occasion requires, and better than to speak, though never so well.”

— Plutarch

66. “Not by lamentations and mournful chants ought we to celebrate the funeral of a good man, but by hymns, for in ceasing to be numbered with mortals he enters upon the heritage of a diviner life.”

— Plutarch

67. “Antisthenes says that in a certain faraway land the cold is so intense that words freeze as soon as they are uttered, and after some time then thaw and become audible, so that words spoken in winter go unheard until the next summer.”

— Plutarch

68. “As bees extract honey from thyme, the strongest and driest of herbs, so sensible men often get advantage and profit from the most awkward circumstances.”

— Plutarch

69. “Men who marry wives very much superior to themselves are not so truly husbands to their wives as they are unawares made slaves to their position.”

— Plutarch

70. “Immoderate grief is selfish, harmful, brings no advantage to either the mourner or the mourned, and dishonors the dead.”

— Plutarch

71. “Anaximander says that men were first produced in fishes, and when they were grown up and able to help themselves were thrown up, and so lived upon the land.”

— Plutarch

72. “Those are greedy of praise prove that they are poor in merit.”

— Plutarch

73. “If you declare that you are naturally designed for such a diet, then first kill for yourself what you want to eat. Do it, however, only through your own resources, unaided by cleaver or cudgel or any kind of ax.”

— Plutarch

74. “In human life there is constant change of fortune; and it is unreasonable to expect an exemption from the common fate. Life itself decays, and all things are daily changing.”

— Plutarch

75. “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.”

— Plutarch

76. “Prosperity is no just scale; adversity is the only balance to weigh friends.”

— Plutarch

77. “It is a high distinction for a homely woman to be loved for her character rather than for beauty.”

— Plutarch

78. “That we may consult concerning others, and not others concerning us.”

— Plutarch

79. “Poverty is not dishonorable in itself, but only when it comes from idleness, intemperance, extravagance, and folly.”

— Plutarch

80. “To fail to do good is as bad as doing harm.”

— Plutarch

81. “Reason speaks and feeling bites.”

— Plutarch

82. “Nothing is cheap which is superfluous, for what one does not need, is dear at a penny.”

— Plutarch

83. “Among real friends there is no rivalry or jealousy of one another, but they are satisfied and contented alike whether they are equal or one of them is superior.”

— Plutarch

84. “Cicero called Aristotle a river of flowing gold, and said of Plato’s Dialogues, that if Jupiter were to speak, it would be in language like theirs.”

— Plutarch

85. “I am all that hath been, and is, and shall be; and my veil no mortal has hitherto raised.”

— Plutarch

86. “Of all the disorders in the soul, envy is the only one no one confesses to.”

— Plutarch

87. “The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.”

— Plutarch

88. “The richest soil, if uncultivated, produces the rankest weeds.”

— Plutarch

89. “The very spring and root of honesty and virtue lie in good education.”

— Plutarch

90. “Evidence of trust begets trust, and love is reciprocated by love.”

— Plutarch

91. “Grief is like a physical pain which must be allowed to subside somewhat on its own before medical treatment is applied.”

— Plutarch

92. “All men whilst they are awake are in one common world: but each of them, when he is asleep, is in a world of his own.”

— Plutarch

93. “Either is both, and Both is neither.”

— Plutarch

94. “He who owns a hundred sheep must fight with fifty wolves.”

— Plutarch

95. “For he who gives no fuel to fire puts it out, and likewise he who does not in the beginning nurse his wrath and does not puff himself up with anger takes precautions against it and destroys it.”

— Plutarch

96. “Water and our necessary food are the only things that wise men must fight for.”

— Plutarch

97. “The poor go to war, to fight and die for the delights, riches, and superfluities of others.”

— Plutarch

98. “Socrates said he was not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.”

— Plutarch

99. “Courage consists not in hazarding without fear; but being resolutely minded in a just cause.”

— Plutarch

100. “Abstruse questions must have abstruse answers.”

— Plutarch