Top 300 Plutarch Quotes (2025 Update)
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201. “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.”

— Plutarch

202. “Moral habits, induced by public practices, are far quicker in making their way into men’s private lives, than the failings and faults of individuals are in infecting the city at large.”

— Plutarch

203. “The malicious humor of men, though perverse and refractory, is not so savage and invincible but it may be wrought upon by kindness, and altered by repeated obligations.”

— Plutarch

204. “Nothing exists in the intellect that has not first gone through the senses.”

— Plutarch

205. “The mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting. EOQ.”

— Plutarch

206. “It is not reasonable that he who does not shoot should hit the mark, nor that he who does not stand fast at his post should win the day, or that the helpless man should succeed or the coward prosper.”

— Plutarch

207. “Themistocles replied that a man’s discourse was like to a rich Persian carpet, the beautiful figures and patterns of which can only be shown by spreading and extending it out; when it is contracted and folded up, they are obscured and lost.”

— Plutarch

208. “It is the admirer of himself, and not the admirer of virtue, that thinks himself superior to others.”

— Plutarch

209. “When someone blamed Hecataeus the sophist because that, being invited to the public table, he had not spoken one word all supper-time, Archidamidas answered in his vindication ‘He who knows how to speak, knows also when’.”

— Plutarch

210. “He who busies himself in mean occupations, produces in the very pains he takes about things of little or no use, an evidence against himself of his negligence and indisposition to what is really good.”

— Plutarch

211. “Authority and place demonstrate and try the tempers of men, by moving every passion and discovering every frailty.”

— Plutarch

212. “It does not follow, that because a particular work of art succeeds in charming us, its creator also deserves our admiration.”

— Plutarch

213. “It is a thing of no great difficulty to raise objections against another man’s oration, it is a very easy matter; but to produce a better in it’s place is a work extremely troublesome.”

— Plutarch

214. “Lysander, when Dionysius sent him two gowns, and bade him choose which he would carry to his daughter, said, “She can choose best,” and so took both away with him.”

— Plutarch

215. “It is no disgrace not to be able to do everything; but to undertake, or pretend to do, what you are not made for, is not only shameful, but extremely troublesome and vexatious.”

— Plutarch

216. “Our nature holds so much envy and malice that our pleasure in our own advantages is not so great as our distress at others’.”

— Plutarch

217. “It was not important how many enemies there are, but where the enemy is.”

— Plutarch

218. “There is no perfecter endowment in man than political virtue.”

— Plutarch

219. “For to err in opinion, though it be not the part of wise men, is at least human.”

— Plutarch

220. “There is no debt with so much prejudice put off as that of justice.”

— Plutarch

221. “Lying is a most disgraceful vice; it first despises God, and then fears men.”

— Plutarch

222. “The most glorious exploits do not always furnish us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men.”

— Plutarch

223. “He who least likes courting favour, ought also least to think of resenting neglect; to feel wounded at being refused a distinction can only arise from an overweening appetite to have it.”

— Plutarch

224. “It is easy to utter what has been kept silent, but impossible to recall what has been uttered.”

— Plutarch

225. “Justice makes the life of such as are in prosperity, power and authority the life of a god, and injustice turns it to that of a beast.”

— Plutarch

226. “Distressed valor challenges great respect, even from an enemy.”

— Plutarch

227. “What can they suffer that do not fear to die?”

— Plutarch

228. “The giving of riches and honors to a wicked man is like giving strong wine to him that hath a fever.”

— Plutarch

229. “Children ought to be led to honorable practices by means of encouragement and reasoning, and most certainly not by blows and ill treatment.”

— Plutarch

230. “Demaratus, being asked in a troublesome manner by an importunate fellow, Who was the best man in Lacedaemon? answered at last, ‘He, Sir, that is the least like you’.”

— Plutarch

231. “A remorseful change of mind renders even a noble action base, whereas the determination which is grounded on knowledge and reason cannot change even if its actions fail.”

— Plutarch

232. “Zeno first started that doctrine, that knavery is the best defence against a knave.”

— Plutarch

233. “I confess myself the greatest coward in the world, for I dare not do an ill thing.”

— Plutarch

234. “Most people do not understand until old age what Plato tells them when they are young.”

— Plutarch

235. “An old doting fool, with one foot already in the grave.”

— Plutarch

236. “Gout is not relieved by a fine shoe nor a hangnail by a costly ring nor migraine by a tiara.”

— Plutarch

237. “Courage and wisdom are, indeed, rarities amongst men, but of all that is good, a just man it would seem is the most scarce.”

— Plutarch

238. “They should live all together on an equal footing; merit to be their only road to eminence, and the disgrace of evil, and credit of worthy acts, their one measure of difference between man and man.”

— Plutarch

239. “We ought to regard books as we do sweetmeats, not wholly to aim at the pleasantest, but chiefly to respect the wholesomest; not forbidding either, but approving the latter most.”

— Plutarch

240. “Hesiod might as well have kept his breath to cool his pottage.”

— Plutarch

241. “It is circumstance and proper measure that give an action its character, and make it either good or bad.”

— Plutarch

242. “Cato requested old men not to add the disgrace of wickedness to old age, which was accompanied with many other evils.”

— Plutarch

243. “Cicero said loud-bawling orators were driven by their weakness to noise, as lame men to take horse.”

— Plutarch

244. “The present offers itself to our touch for only an instant of time and then eludes the senses.”

— Plutarch

245. “They fought indeed and were slain, but it was to maintain the luxury and the wealth of other men.”

— Plutarch

246. “Over time events trickle out of the minds of forgetful, thoughtless people, and so, since they retain and conserve nothing, the empty space within them, that should be filled with good things, is filled instead with hopes, so that they neglect the present and look to the future, despite the fact that fortune may yet foil the future, whereas the present cannot be taken away.”

— Plutarch

247. “Let a prince be guarded with soldiers, attended by councillors, and shut up in forts; yet if his thoughts disturb him, he is miserable.”

— Plutarch

248. “Lamentation is the only musician that always, like a screech-owl, alights and sits on the roof of any angry man.”

— Plutarch

249. “Adversity is the only balance to weigh friends.”

— Plutarch

250. “We are more sensible of what is done against custom than against nature.”

— Plutarch