Plutarch S Lives Quotes & Sayings

All beyond this is portentous and fabulous, inhabited by poets and mythologers, and there is nothing true or certain. — Plutarch

The fact is that men who know nothing of decency in their own lives are only too ready to launch foul slanders against their betters and to offer them up as victims to the evil deity of popular envy. — Plutarch

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, unapproachable bogs, Scythian ice, or a frozen sea, so, in this work of mine, in which I have compared the lives of the greatest men with one another, after passing through those periods which probable reasoning can reach to and real history find a footing in, I might very well say of those that are farther off, beyond this there is nothing but prodigies and fictions, the only inhabitants are the poets and inventors of fables; there is no credit, or certainty any farther. — Plutarch

One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality. That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people's lives simply by existing. — J.K. Rowling

Like every man who appears at an epoch which is historical and rendered famous by his works, Jesus Christ has a history, a history which the church and the world possess, and which, surrounded by countless memorials, has at least the same authenticity as any other history formed in the same countries, amidst the same peoples and in the same times. As, then, if I would study the lives of Brutus and Cassius, I should calmly open Plutarch, I open the Gospel to study Jesus Christ, and I do so with the same composure. — Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

A lover's soul lives in the body of his mistress. — Plutarch

Patriot writers attempted to inculcate civic virtue through allusions to classical history, frequently Greek but even more often Roman, and ancient glory. A revolutionary writer in the Virginia Gazette, wishing to "secure this valuable blessing [of classical virtue], and learn the greatness of its worth," wished to recommend to his "countrymen, especially the younger part of it, a thorough acquaintance with these records of illustrious liberty, the histories of Greece and Rome." The writer intended this recommendation not as a theoretical or academic exercise, but rather as a spur to urge Americans to "a glorious emulation of those virtues, which have immortalized their names." Classical examples would surely instill Americans with "a just hatred of tyranny and zeal for freedom," and induce them to follow "the godlike actions of those heroes and patriots, whose lives are delivered down to us by Plutarch. — Eran Shalev

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

Why, Sir, when I have anything to invent, I never trouble my head about it, as other men do; but presently turn over this Book, and there I have, at one view, all that Perseus , Montaigne , Seneca 's Tragedies , Horace , Juvenal , Claudian, Pliny , Plutarch 's lives , and the rest, have ever thought upon this subject: and so, in a trice, by leaving out a few words, or putting in others of my own, the business is done. — Theresa Villiers

I am fully aware that everybody has a right to succeed, and success should be with ethics. — Sharad Pawar

If your friend wishes to read your 'Plutarch's Lives,' 'Shakespeare,' or 'The Federalist Papers,' tell him gently but firmly, to buy a copy. You will lend him your car or your coat - but your books are as much a part of you as your head or your heart. — Mortimer J. Adler

We are stardust, billion year old carbon. we are golden, caught in the devil's bargain. — Joni Mitchell

For it is not Histories that I am writing, but Lives; and in the most illustrious deeds there is not always a manifestation of virtue or vice, nay, a slight thing like a phrase or a jest often makes a greater revelation of character than battles where thousands fall, or the greatest armaments, or sieges of cities. — Plutarch

We had to save you because you're the mockingjay, Katniss," says Plutarch. "While you live, the revolution lives. — Suzanne Collins

But, if we explore the literature of Heroism, we shall quickly come to Plutarch, who is its Doctor and historian. To him we owe the Brasidas, the Dion, the Epaminodas, the Scipio of old, and I must think we are more deeply indebted to him than to all the ancient writers. Each of his "Lives" is a refutation to the despondency and cowardice of our religious and political theorists. A wild courage, a Stoicism not of the schools, but of the blood, shines in every anecdote, and had given that book immense fame. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have frequently experienced myself the mood in which I felt that all is vanity; I have emerged from it not by any philosophy, but owing to some imperative necessity of action. — Bertrand Russell

He really would have done all that for her, you see, and done it believing he'd burn in hell forever for doing it. He hadn't done it, and wouldn't had made her his anyway, but you see why he'd have figured it did. Or maybe I saw it anyway, at the time. He was a maniac and a monster, but people don't love like that anymore. Or maybe it's only the maniacs and monsters who do. I don't know. — Peter S. Beagle

What is good is also divine. Queer as it sounds, that sums up my ethics. Only something supernatural can express the Supernatural. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

We unfortunately seem to be unconsciously biased against those in the society who come out on the bottom. — Leonard Mlodinow

Looking down at the Chinese officer who was trying to gather his entrails with his hands. Suriyawong had the irrational thought that the man ought really to wash his organs before jamming them back into his abdomen. It was so unsanitary. — Orson Scott Card

A competitive athlete is painful to look at; trying hard to become an animal rather than a man, he will never be as fast as a cheetah or as strong as an ox. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

And the most glorious exploits do not always furnish us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men; sometimes a matter of less moment, an expression or a jest, informs us better of their characters and inclinations, than the most famous sieges, the greatest armaments, or the bloodiest battles whatsoever. Therefore as portrait-painters are more exact in the lines and features of the face, in which the character is seen, than in the other parts of the body, so I must be allowed to give my more particular attention to the marks and indications of the souls of men, and while I endeavor by these to portray their lives, may be free to leave more weighty matters and great battles to be treated of by others. — Plutarch

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

It is not histories I am writing, but lives; and in the most glorious deeds there is not always an indication of virtue or vice, indeed a small thing like a phrase or a jest often makes a greater revelation of a character than battles where thousands die. — Plutarch

I love and honour [Paulus Aemilius, in Plutarch's Lives], for his fondness for his children, which instead of blushing at, he avows and glories in: and that at an age, when almost all the heros and great men thought that to make their children and family a secondary concern, was the first proof of their superiority and greatness of soul. — Fanny Burney

We have always goodly stock in us of that which we condemn: as only similars can be profitably contrasted, so only similar people quarrel, and the bitterest wars are over the slightest variations of purpose or belief. — Will Durant

No poll can equal the day-to-day visits of the men and women of the Democratic Party. — Richard J. Daley