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
Neither fear nor self-interest can convert the soul. They may change the appearance, perhaps even the conduct, but never the object of supreme desire... Fear is the motive which constrains the slave; greed binds the selfish man, by which he is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed (James 1:14). But neither fear nor self-interest is undefiled, nor can they convert the soul. Only charity can convert the soul, freeing it from unworthy motives.
The virtuous man contents himself with dreaming that which the wicked man does in actual life.
A lie told often enough becomes the truth.
I never had an occasion to question color, therefore, I only saw myself as what I was... a human being.
Biology designed the dance. Terror timed it. Dictated the rhythm with which their bodies answered each other. As though they already knew that for each tremor of pleasure they would pay with an equal measure of pain. As though they knew that how far they went would be measured against how far they would be taken.
God bears with the wicked, but not forever.
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