Great Throughts Treasury

"It was a shrewd saying, whoever said it, "That the man who first brought ruin on the Roman people was he who pampered them by largesses and amusements.""

"Laughing at his own son, who got his mother, and by his mother's means his father also, to indulge him, he told him that he had the most power of any one in Greece: "For the Athenians command the rest of Greece, I command the Athenians, your mother commands me, and you command your mother.""

"Man is neither by birth nor disposition a savage, nor of unsocial habits, but only becomes so by indulging in vices contrary to his nature."

"Nature without learning is blind, learning apart from nature is fractional, and practice in the absence of both is aimless."

"No one of you can tell me where my shoe pinches me."

"Not by lamentations and mournful chants ought we to celebrate the funeral of a good man, but by humans, for in ceasing to be numbered with mortals he enters upon the heritage of a diviner life."

"Nothing is harder to direct than a man in prosperity; nothing more easily managed than one in adversity."

"Philosophy finds talkativeness a disease very difficult and hard to cure. For its remedy, conversation, requires hearers: but talkative people hear nobody, for they are ever prating. And the first evil this inability to keep silence produces is an inability to listen."

"Philosophy is the art [act]of living."

"Prosperity is no just scale; adversity is the only balance to weigh friends."

"Speech contains both injuries and benefits in the largest measure."

"So very difficult a matter is it to trace and find out the truth of anything by history, when, on the one hand, those who afterwards write it find long periods of time intercepting their view, and, on the other hand, the contemporary records of any actions and lives, partly through envy and ill-will, partly through favor and flattery, pervert and distort truth."

"To make no mistakes is not the power of man; but from their errors and mistakes the wise and good learn wisdom for the future."

"That state of life is most happy where superfluities are not required, and necessaries are not wanting."

"To please the many is to displease the wise."

"To receive a proper education is the source and root of all goodness."

"The greater part of mankind are more sensitive to contemptuous language, than to unjust acts; they can less easily bear insult than wrong."

"Time is a river of passing events, aye, a rushing torrent."

"Two of the inscriptions at Delphi are indispensable to living: "Know thyself" and "Avoid extremes," for on these two hang all the rest."

"We have to depend on our enemies to hear the truth."

"It is the usual consolation of the envious, if they cannot maintain their superiority, to represent those by whom they are surpassed as inferior to someone else. "

"What most of all enables a man to serve the public is not wealth, but content and independence; which, requiring no superfluity at home, distracts not the mind from the common good."

"Plutarch – The soul is an exile and a wanderer."

"It is circumstance and proper measure that give an action in its character, and make it either good or bad."

"Those who aim at great deeds must also suffer greatly."

"Not by lamentations and mournful chants ought we to celebrate the funeral of a good man, but by humans; for, in ceasing to be numbered with mortals, he enters upon the heritage of a diviner life. Since he is gone where he feels no pain, let us not indulge in too much grief. The soul is incapable of death... And he, like a bird not long enough in his cage to become attached to it, is free to fly away to a purer air... Since we cherish a trust like this, let our outward actions be in accord with it, and let us keep our hearts pure and our minds calm."

"Children are to be won to follow liberal studies by exhortations and rational motives, and on no account to be forced thereto by whipping."

"If all the world were just, there would be no need for valor."

"Pythagoras, when he was asked what time was, answered that it was the soul of this world."

"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."

"We are more sensible of what is done against custom than of what is done against nature."

"The omission of good is no less reprehensible than the commission of evil."

"Know how to listen and you will profit even from those who talk badly."

"Adversity is the only balance to weigh friends. "

"All men whilst they are awake are in one common world; but each of them, when he is asleep, is in a world of his own."

"An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics. "

"Being conscious of having done a wicked action leaves stings of remorse behind it, which, like an ulcer in the flesh, makes the mind smart with perpetual wounds; for reason, which chases away all other pains, creates repentance, shames the soul with confusion, and punishes it with torment. "

"A remorseful change of mind renders even a noble action base, whereas the determination which is grounded on knowledge and reason cannot change even if its actions fail."

"But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy."

"Books delight to the very marrow of one's bones. They speak to us, consult with us, and join with us in a living and intense intimacy. "

"Can you really ask what reason Pythagoras had for abstaining from flesh? For my part I rather wonder both by what accident and in what state of soul or mind the first man did so, touched his mouth to gore and brought his lips to the flesh of a dead creature, he who set forth tables of dead, stale bodies and ventured to call food and nourishment the parts that had a little before bellowed and cried, moved and lived. How could his eyes endure the slaughter when throats were slit and hides flayed and limbs torn from limb? How could his nose endure the stench? How was it that the pollution did not turn away his taste, which made contact with the sores of others and sucked juices and serums from mortal wounds?… It is certainly not lions and wolves that we eat out of self-defense; on the contrary, we ignore these and slaughter harmless, tame creatures without stings or teeth to harm us, creatures that, I swear, Nature appears to have produced for the sake of their beauty and grace. But nothing abashed us, not the flower-like tinting of the flesh, not the persuasiveness of the harmonious voice, not the cleanliness of their habits or the unusual intelligence that may be found in the poor wretches. No, for the sake of a little flesh we deprive them of sun, of light, of the duration of life to which they are entitled by birth and being. "

"Courage stands halfway between cowardice and rashness, one of which is a lack, the other an excess of courage. "

"By the study of their biographies, we receive each man as a guest into our minds, and we seem to understand their character as the result of a personal acquaintance, because we have obtained from their acts the best and most important means of forming an opinion about them. "What greater pleasure could'st thou gain than this?" What more valuable for the elevation of our own character?"

"Eat not thy heart; which forbids to afflict our souls, and waste them with vexatious cares."

"Do not speak of your happiness to one less fortunate than yourself. "

"Custom is almost second nature."

"Democritus said, “words are but the shadows of actions.”"

"Empire may be gained by gold, not gold by empire. It used, indeed, to be a proverb that "It is not Philip, but Philip's gold that takes the cities of Greece.""

"Fate, however, is to all appearance more unavoidable than unexpected."

"Flattery does not attend upon poor, obscure or unimportant persons, but makes itself an obstacle and pestilence to great houses and great affairs."