Quotes By Plutarch

Character is simply habit long continued.

To make no mistakes is not in the power of man; but from their errors and mistakes the wise and good learn wisdom for the future.

To find fault is easy; to do better may be difficult.

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

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

Those who aim at great deeds must also suffer greatly.

Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks.

Fate leads him who follows it, and drags him who resist.

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

Neither blame or praise yourself.

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

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

Courage stands halfway between cowardice and rashness, one of which is a lack, the other an excess of courage.

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

What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

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

If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes.

It is part of a good man to do great and noble deeds, though he risk everything.

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

I would rather excel in the knowledge of what is excellent, than in the extent of my power and possessions.

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

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

The wildest colts make the best horses.

To be ignorant of the lives of the most celebrated men of antiquity is to continue in a state of childhood all our days.

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.

The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.

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

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.

It were better to have no opinion of God at all than such a one as is unworthy of him; for the one is only belief - the other contempt.

An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.