Top 300 Plutarch Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “The omission of good is no less reprehensible than the commission of evil.”

— Plutarch

52. “The measure of a man’s life is the well spending of it, and not the length.”

— Plutarch

53. “Where the lion’s skin will not reach, you must patch it out with the fox’s.”

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

55. “When a man’s struggle begins within oneself, the man is worth something.”

— Plutarch

56. “Nature and wisdom never are at strife.”

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

62. “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

63. “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

64. “Character is long-standing habit.”

— Plutarch

65. “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

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

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

68. “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

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

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

73. “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

74. “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

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

— Plutarch

76. “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

77. “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

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

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

80. “Demosthenes overcame and rendered more distinct his inarticulate and stammering pronunciation by speaking with pebbles in his mouth.”

— Plutarch

81. “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

82. “Solon being asked, namely, what city was best to live in. That city, he replied, in which those who are not wronged, no less than those who are wronged, exert themselves to punish the wrongdoers.”

— Plutarch

83. “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

84. “What, did you not know, then, that to-day Lucullus dines with Lucullus?”

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

89. “Reason speaks and feeling bites.”

— Plutarch

90. “Nor let us part with justice, like a cheap and common thing, for a small and trifling price.”

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

92. “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

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

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

97. “Vultures are the most righteous of birds: they do not attack even the smallest living creature.”

— Plutarch

98. “Fate, however, is to all appearance more unavoidable than unexpected.”

— Plutarch

99. “Nothing made the horse so fat as the king’s eye.”

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch