Authority and place demonstrate and try the tempers of men, by moving every passion and discovering every frailty.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that authority tests human character by stirring emotions and revealing weaknesses.
Plutarch's quote highlights how positions of power and societal roles expose the true nature of individuals. When authority acts upon people, it can evoke a range of emotions, from pride to fear, ultimately leading to the revelation of their vulnerabilities and flaws. This passage reflects on the idea that the way individuals respond to authority can profoundly indicate their moral and emotional strength.
In practice
In a discussion about leadership qualities in a seminar.
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
Once you have become permanently startled, as I am, by the realization that we are a social species, you tend to keep an eye out for the pieces of evidence that this is, by and large, good for us.
We used to be a source of fuel; we are increasingly becoming a sink. These supplies of foreign liquid fuel are no doubt vital to our industry, but our ever-increasing dependence upon them ought to arouse serious and timely reflection. The scientific utilisation, by liquefaction, pulverisation and other processes, or our vast and magnificent deposits of coal, constitutes a national object of prime importance.
Fear Allah, for that is fortune; indifference to Allah is misfortune.
Open-minded people tend to be interested in Buddhism because Buddha urged people to investigate things - he didn't just command them to believe.
how can one respect, let alone adopt, the values of a people who do not, on any level whatever, live the way they say they do, or the way they say they should?
The founding of our Nation was more than a political event; it was an act of faith, a promise to Americans and to the entire world. The Declaration of Independence declared that people can govern themselves, that they can live in freedom with equal rights, that they can respect the rights of others.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.