Were it only to learn benevolence to humankind, we should be merciful to other creatures.
Interpretation
We should show kindness to all living beings as a way to cultivate compassion in ourselves.
Plutarch suggests that our treatment of other creatures reflects our understanding and practice of benevolence towards humanity. By extending mercy and kindness to animals and all beings, we develop a more compassionate and empathetic nature, which ultimately benefits our interactions with fellow humans.
In practice
In a speech advocating for animal rights, one might quote Plutarch to emphasize the importance of kindness to all living beings.
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
The richer we have become materially, the poorer we become morally and spiritually. We have learned to fly in the air like birds and swim in the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.
Most climbers aren't in fact deranged, they're just infected with a particularly virulent strain of the Human Condition.
I am one of billions. I am stardust gathered fleetingly into form. I will be ungathered. The stardust will go on to be other things someday and I will be free.
About sacrifice and the offering of sacrifices, sacrificial animals think quite differently from those who look on: but they have never been allowed to have their say.
I'm the type who'd be happy not going anywhere as long as I was sure I knew exactly what was happening at the places I wasn't going to. I'm the type who'd like to sit home and watch every party that I'm invited to on a monitor in my bedroom.
Make sure that your religion is a matter between you and God only.
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