It is a hard matter, my fellow citizens, to argue with the belly, since it has no ears.
Interpretation
Arguments driven by basic needs are often futile.
This quote by Plutarch suggests that when people are driven by their basic needs, like hunger, they are less likely to listen to reason or engage in thoughtful discussion. It highlights the challenges in communicating effectively when someone is primarily focused on fulfilling their immediate physical needs, indicating that addressing such needs is foundational before productive dialogue can occur.
In practice
A politician could use this quote when discussing the importance of addressing basic needs before engaging the public in complex policies.
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 wanted to give money to people like this woman so that they would be free from the moneylenders to sell their product at the price which the markets gave them - which was much higher than what the trader was giving them.
We can no more justify using nonhumans as human resources than we can justify human slavery. Animal use and slavery have at least one important point in common: both institutions treat sentient beings exclusively as resources of others. That cannot be justified with respect to humans; it cannot be justified with respect to nonhumans—however “humanely” we treat them.
Often we mistake stability, in terms of security and economic activity, to mean a country is doing well. We forget the third and important pillar: rule of law and respect for human rights.
It is life, more than death, that has no limits.
We don't recognize each other because other people have become our permanent mirrors. If we actually realized this, if we were able to become aware of the fact that we are only ever looking at ourselves in the other person, that we are alone in the wilderness, we would go crazy.
This day is all that is good and fair. It is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on the yesterdays.
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