Epaminondas is reported wittily to have said of a good man that died about the time of the battle of Leuctra, "How came he to have so much leisure as to die, when there was so much stirring? Plutarch More Quotes by Plutarch More Quotes From Plutarch Character is long-standing habit. Plutarch character philosophy art Where the lion's skin will not reach, you must patch it out with the fox's. Plutarch lions skins foxes 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 plato gold rivers 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 politics wisdom men For, in the language of Heraclitus, the virtuous soul is pure and unmixed light, springing from the body as a flash of lightning darts from the cloud. But the soul that is carnal and immersed in sense, like a heavy and dank vapor, can with difficulty be kindled, and caused to raise its eyes heavenward. Plutarch light eye clouds So long as he was personally present, [Alcibiades] had the perfect mastery of his political adversaries; calumny only succeeded in his absence. Plutarch political perfect long God alone is entirely exempt from all want of human virtues, that which needs least is the most absolute and divine. Plutarch god want needs Oh, what a world full of pain we create, for a little taste upon the tongue. Plutarch pain littles world As in the case of painters, who have undertaken to give us a beautiful and graceful figure, which may have some slight blemishes, we do not wish then to pass over such blemishes altogether, nor yet to mark them too prominently. The one would spoil the beauty, and the other destroy the likeness of the picture. Plutarch wish beautiful giving 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 unjust principles country For the correct analogy for the mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting. Plutarch mind inspirational needs Agesilaus being invited once to hear a man who admirably imitated the nightingale, he declined, saying he had heard the nightingale itself. Plutarch nightingales heard men Fate, however, is to all appearance more unavoidable than unexpected. Plutarch unexpected fate appearance Of the land which the Romans gained by conquest from their neighbours, part they sold publicly, and turned the remainder into common; this common land they assigned to such of the citizens as were poor and indigent, for which they were to pay only a small acknowledgment into the public treasury. But when the wealthy men began to offer larger rents, and drive the poorer people out, it was enacted by law that no person whatever should enjoy more than five hundred acres of ground. Plutarch land law men For man is a plant, not fixed in the earth, nor immovable, but heavenly, whose head, rising as it were from a root upwards, is turned towards heaven. Plutarch roots men heaven To be ignorant of the lives of the most celebrated men of antiquity is to continue in a state of childhood all our days. Plutarch childhood men life To the Greeks, the supreme function of music was to "praise the gods and educate the youth". In Egypt... Initiatory music was heard only in Temple rites because it carried the vibratory rhythms of other worlds and of a life beyond the mortal. Plutarch egypt other-worlds inspiration No man ever wetted clay and then left it, as if there would be bricks by chance and fortune. Plutarch fate destiny men Either is both, and Both is neither. Plutarch Nothing is cheap which is superfluous, for what one does not need, is dear at a penny. Plutarch pennies doe needs
