Top 300 Plutarch Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “Lysander said that the law spoke too softly to be heard in such a noise of war.”

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

103. “A few vices are sufficient to darken many virtues.”

— Plutarch

104. “Let us carefully observe those good qualities wherein our enemies excel us; and endeavor to excel them, by avoiding what is faulty, and imitating what is excellent in them.”

— Plutarch

105. “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

106. “The state of life is most happy where superfluities are not required and necessities are not wanting.”

— Plutarch

107. “It is no flattery to give a friend a due character; for commendation is as much the duty of a friend as reprehension.”

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

109. “He is a fool who leaves things close at hand to follow what is out of reach.”

— Plutarch

110. “Wickedness is a wonderfully diligent architect of misery, of shame, accompanied with terror, and commotion, and remorse, and endless perturbation.”

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

112. “Custom is almost a second nature.”

— Plutarch

113. “When another is asked a question, take special care not to interrupt to answer it yourself.”

— Plutarch

114. “Democritus said, words are but the shadows of actions.”

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

116. “Thus they let their anger and fury take from them the sense of humanity, and demonstrated that no beast is more savage than man when possessed with power answerable to his rage.”

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

119. “A healer of others, himself diseased.”

— Plutarch

120. “Prosperity has this property; it puffs up narrow souls, makes them imagine themselves high and mighty, and leads them to look down upon the world with contempt; but a truly noble spirit appears greatest in distress;.”

— Plutarch

121. “The wildest colts make the best horses.”

— Plutarch

122. “The future bears down upon each one of us with all the hazards of the unknown. The only way out is through.”

— Plutarch

123. “A fool cannot hold his tongue.”

— Plutarch

124. “Do not speak of your happiness to one less fortunate than yourself.”

— Plutarch

125. “In words are seen the state of mind and character and disposition of the speaker.”

— Plutarch

126. “As geographers, Sosius, crowd into the edges of their maps parts of the world which they do not know about, adding notes in the margin to the effect that beyond this lies nothing but sandy deserts full of wild beasts, and unapproachable bogs.”

— Plutarch

127. “It is a hard matter, my fellow citizens, to argue with the belly, since it has no ears.”

— Plutarch

128. “Since, during storms, flames leap from the humid vapors and dark clouds emit deafening noises, is it surprising the lightning, when it strikes the ground, gives rise to truffles, which do not resemble plants?”

— Plutarch

129. “These Macedonians are a rude and clownish people; they call a spade a spade.”

— Plutarch

130. “It is indeed a desirable thing to be well-descended, but the glory belongs to our ancestors.”

— Plutarch

131. “Good birth is a fine thing, but the merit is our ancestors.”

— Plutarch

132. “Friendship requires a steady, constant, and unchangeable character, a person that is uniform in his intimacy.”

— Plutarch

133. “If you hate your enemies, you will contract such a vicious habit of mind that it will break out upon those who are your friends, or those who are indifferent to you.”

— Plutarch

134. “To please the many is to displease the wise.”

— Plutarch

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

— Plutarch

136. “The flatterer’s object is to please in everything he does; whereas the true friend always does what is right, and so often gives pleasure, often pain, not wishing the latter, but not shunning it either, if he deems it best.”

— Plutarch

137. “Nothing is harder to direct than a man in prosperity; nothing more easily managed that one is adversity.”

— Plutarch

138. “The crowns of kings do not prevent those who wear them from being tormented sometimes by violent headaches.”

— Plutarch

139. “It was a pleasure merely to hear the sound of her voice, with which, like an instrument of many strings, she could pass from one language to another; so that there were few of the barbarian nations that she answered by an interpreter.”

— Plutarch

140. “There is no stronger test of a person’s character than power and authority, exciting as they do every passion, and discovering every latent vice.”

— Plutarch

141. “Words will build no walls.”

— Plutarch

142. “Forgetfulness transforms every occurrence into a non-occurrence.”

— Plutarch

143. “Blinded as they are to their true character by self-love, every man is his own first and chiefest flatterer, prepared, therefore, to welcome the flatterer from the outside, who only comes confirming the verdict of the flatterer within.”

— Plutarch

144. “The superstitious man wishes he did not believe in gods, as the atheist does not, but fears to disbelieve in them.”

— Plutarch

145. “The first evil those who are prone to talk suffer, is that they hear nothing.”

— Plutarch

146. “As small letters hurt the sight, so do small matters him that is too much intent upon them; they vex and stir up anger, which begets an evil habit in him in reference to greater affairs.”

— Plutarch

147. “We ought not to treat living creatures like shoes or household belongings, which when worn with use we throw away.”

— Plutarch

148. “He is a fool who lets slip a bird in the hand for a bird in the bush.”

— Plutarch

149. “Apothegms are the most infallible mirror to represent a man truly what he is.”

— Plutarch

150. “It is the usual consolation of the envious, if they cannot maintain their superiority, to represent those by whom they are surpassed as inferior to some one else.”

— Plutarch