Plutarch

Sometimes small incidents, rather than glorious exploits, give us the best evidence of character. So, as portrait painters are more exact in doing the face, where the character is revealed, than the rest of the body, I must be allowed to give my more particular attention to the marks of the souls of men.

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.

Come back with your shield - or on it

The richest soil, if uncultivated, produces the rankest weeds.

For the correct analogy for the mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting.

Our senses through ignorance of Reality, falsely tell us that what appears to be, is. FEAR = False Evidence Appearing Real

I don't need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod; my shadow does that much better.

For the mind does not require filling like a bottle, but rather, like wood, it only requires kindling to create in it an impulse to think independently and an ardent desire for the truth.

Politics is not like an ocean voyage or a military campaign... something which leaves off as soon as reached. It is not a public chore to be gotten over with. It is a way of life.

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

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.

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

The wildest colts make the best horses.

The same intelligence is required to marshal an army in battle and to order a good dinner. The first must be as formidable as possible, the second as pleasant as possible, to the participants.

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

The whole life of man is but a point of time; let us enjoy it.

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.

Reason speaks and feeling bites

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

Were it only to learn benevolence to humankind, we should be merciful to other creatures.