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Wisdom alone is true ambition's aim.   Wisdom the source of virtue, and of fame,  Obtained with labor, for mankind employed,  And then, when most you share it, best enjoyed.

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Sep 06, 2025

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It is wise to be silent when occasion requires, and better than to speak, though never so well.
Mestrius Plutarchus

Quote Author: Mestrius Plutarchus

Mestrius Plutarchus

Mestrius Plutarchus

Mestrius Plutarchus (Greek: Πλούταρχος; c. 46 AD - 120 AD), better known in English as Plutarch, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist. Plutarch was born to a prominent family in Chaeronea, Boeotia [Greece], a town about twenty miles east of Delphi. His oeuvre consists of the Parallel Lives and the Moralia .

Other Mestrius Plutarchus Quotes

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

To do an evil act is base. To do a good one without incurring danger, is common enough. But it is part of a good man to do great and noble deeds though he risks everything in doing them.

Water continually dropping will wear hard rocks hollow.

There are two sentences inscribed upon the Ancient oracle… Know thyself and Nothing too much; and upon these all other precepts depend.

When the candles are out all women are fair.

The great god Pan is dead.

The worship most acceptable to God comes from a thankful and cheerful heart.

The talkative listen to no one, for they are ever speaking. And the first evil that attends those who know not how to be silent, is, that they hear nothing.

The King said, The Athenians govern the Greeks; I govern the Athenians; you, my wife, govern me; your son governs you.

The Heavens seemed to men to fulfill the functions of father, and the Earth of mother. The former impregnated the earth with its fertilizing rains, and the earth, receiving them, became fruitful and brought forth.

Talkative people who wish to be loved are hated; when they desire to please, they bore; when they think they are admired, they are laughed at; they injure their friends, benefit their enemies, and ruin themselves.

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

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.

It is an observation no less just than common, that there is no stronger test of a man's real character than power and authority, exciting as they do every passion, and discovering every latent vice.

Lying is a most disgraceful vice; it first despises God, And then fears men.

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.

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

Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little.

Philosophy is the art of living.

A few vices are sufficient to darken many virtues.

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.

Abstruse questions must have abstruse answers.

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.

If we traverse the world, it is possible to find cities without walls, without letters, without kings, without wealth, without coin, without schools and theatres; but a city without a temple, or that practiseth not worship,

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

Courage consists not in hazarding without fear, But being resolutely minded in a just cause.

Character is simply habit long continued.

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.

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

A traveller at Sparta, standing long upon one leg, said to a Lacedaemonian, 'I do not believe you can do as much.' 'True,' said he, 'but every goose can.'

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.

Nor is it always in the most distinguished achievements that men's virtues or vices may be best discovered: but very often an action of small note, a short saying, or a jest, shall distinguish a person's real character more than the greatest sieges, or the most important battle.

The continuance and frequent fits of anger produce in the soul a propensity to be angry; which ofttimes ends in choler, bitterness, and morosity, when the mid becomes ulcerated, peevish, and querulous, and is wounded by the least occurrence.

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

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

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

Learn to be pleased with everything; with wealth, so far as it makes us beneficial to others; with poverty, for not having much to care for; and with obscurity, for being unenvied.

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

Custom is almost second nature.

Not by lamentations and mournful chants ought we to celebrate the funeral of a good man, but by hymns; for, ion ceasing to be numbered with mortals, he enters upon the heritage of a diviner life. Since he is gone where he feels no pain, let us not indulge in too much grief. The soul is incapable of death. And he, like a bird not long enough in his cage to become attached to it, is free to fly away to a purer air.... Since we cherish a trust like this, let our outward actions be in accord with it, and let us keep our hearts pure and our minds calm.

This excerpt is presented as reproduced by Copernicus in the preface to De Revolutionibus: 'Some think that the earth remains at rest. But Philolaus the Pythagorean believes that, like the sun and moon, it revolves around the fire in an oblique circle. Heraclides of Pontus and Ecphantus the Pythagorean make the earth move, not in a progressive motion, but like a wheel in rotation from west to east around its own center.'

Socrates said, 'Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.'

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

Said Scopas of Thessaly, 'We rich men count our felicity and happiness to lie in these superfluities, and not in those necessary things.'

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.

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

That state of life is most happy where superfluities are not required and necessities are not wanting.

The man who first brought ruin upon the Roman people was he who pampered them by largesses and amusements.

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

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

There is no doubt that the real destroyer of the liberties of any people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and largess.

The measure of a man is the way he bears up under misfortune.

[about Archimedes:] ... being perpetually charmed by his familiar siren, that is, by his geometry, he neglected to eat and drink and took no care of his person; that he was often carried by force to the baths, and when there he would trace geometrical figures in the ashes of the fire, and with his finger draw lines upon his body when it was anointed with oil, being in a state of great ecstasy and divinely possessed by his science.

Medicine, to produce health, has to examine disease; and music, to create harmony, must investigate discord.

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

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.

Thamus ... uttered with a loud voice his message, 'The great Pan is dead.'

Philosophy is an act of living.

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

Pompey bade Sylla recollect that more worshipped the rising than the setting sun.

[about Theseus, began the saying:] He is a second Hercules.

A Roman divorced from his wife, being highly blamed by his friends, who demanded, 'Was she not chaste? Was she not fair? Was she not fruitful?' holding out his shoe, asked them whether it was not new and well made. 'Yet,' added he, 'none of you can tell where it pinches me.'

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

Pythagoras, when he was asked what time it was, answered that it was the soul of this world.

To fail to do good is as bad as doing harm.

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

It is a thing of no great difficulty to raise objections against another man's oration — nay, it is a very easy matter; but to produce a better in its place is a work extremely troublesome.

It is a true proverb, that if you live with a lame man, you will learn to limp.

When the strong box contains no more, both friends and flatterers shun the door.

But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy.

The whole life of man is but a point of time; let us enjoy it, therefore, while it lasts, and not spend it to no purpose.

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

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