Plutarch

born in 46 AD; died in 119 AD (age ~73)

ancient Roman historian


Quotes (Authored)

natural strength is above all art

how dangerous a thing it is to incur the hostility of a city that is mistress of eloquence and song

what a poet fortune sometimes shows herself

And indeed there was nothing did more advance the greatness of Rome, than that she did always unite and incorporate those whom she conquered into herself.

And truly Antigonus, it would seem, was not solitary in saying, he loved betrayers, but hated those who had betrayed; nor Cæsar, who told Rhymitalces the Thracian, that he loved the treason, but hated the traitor; but it is the general feeling of all who have occasion for wicked men's service, as people have for the poison of venomous beasts; they are glad of them while they are of use, and abhor their baseness when it is over.

  • Plutarch, Julius Caesar

    • Afterwards he, as most, nay all men, very few excepted, do, who are raised by great and miraculous good-haps of fortune to power and greatness, so, I say, did he; relying upon his own great actions, and growing of a haughtier mind, he forsook his popular behavior for kingly arrogance, odious to the people; to whom in the particular the state which he assumed was hateful.

  • about Romulus

    • Both Theseus and Romulus were by nature meant for governors; yet neither lived up to the true character of a king, but fell off, and ran, the one into popularity, the other into tyranny, falling both into the same fault out of different passions. For a ruler's first end is to maintain his office, which is done no less by avoiding what is unfit than by observing what is suitable. Whoever is either too remiss or too strict is no more a king or a governor, but either a demagogue or a despot, and so becomes either odious or contemptible to his subjects. Though certainly the one seems to be the fault of easiness and good-nature, the other of pride and severity.

    ...love and jealousy and the complaints of his wife, which few men can avoid being moved by...

    One, then, of the Rhetras was, that their laws should not be written; another is particularly levelled against luxury and expensiveness, for by it it was ordained that the ceilings of their houses should only be wrought by the axe, and their gates and doors smoothed only by the saw. [...] Luxury and a house of this kind could not well be companions. For a man must have a less than ordinary share of sense that would furnish such plain and common rooms with silver-footed couches and purple coverlets and gold and silver plate.

    A third ordinance or Rhetra was, that they should not make war often, or long, with the same enemy, lest that they should train and instruct them in war, by habituating them to defend themselves.

    as loose and incontinent livers are seldom fathers of many children, so loose and incontinent talkers seldom originate many sensible words

    King Charilaus, the nephew of Lycurgus, being asked why his uncle had made so few laws, answered, "Men of few words require but few laws."

  • Plutarch, King Charilaus

    • I cannot but wonder at those who say that the Spartans were good subjects, but bad governors, and for proof of it allege a saying of king Theopompus, who, when one said that Sparta held up so long because their kings could command so well, replied, "Nay, rather because the people know so well how to obey." For people do not obey, unless rulers know how to command; obedience is a lesson taught by commanders. A true leader himself creates the obedience of his own followers; as it is the last attainment in the art of riding to make a horse gentle and tractable, so is it of the science of government, to inspire men with a willingness to obey.

  • Plutarch, Theopompus

    • Romulus would have but openly betrayed how much he had encroached on his neighbors' lands, had he ever set limits to his own; for boundaries are, indeed, a defence to those who choose to observe them, but are only a testimony against the dishonesty of those who break through them.

  • about Romulus

    • There is no employment that gives so keen and quick a relish for peace as husbandry and a country life, which leave in men all that kind of courage that makes them ready to fight in defence of their own, while it destroys the license that breaks out into acts of injustice and rapacity.

    Reflecting how hard substances that do not readily mix when in the lump may, by being beaten into powder, in that minute form be combined, [Numa] resolved to divide the whole population into a number of small divisions, and thus hoped, by introducing other distinctions, to obliterate the original and great distinction, which would be lost among the smaller. So, distinguishing the whole people by several arts and trades, he formed the companies of musicians, goldsmiths, carpenters, dyers, shoemakers, skinners, braziers, and potters; and all other handicraftsmen he composed and reduced into a single company, appointing every one their proper courts, councils, and religious observations. In this manner all factious distinctions began, for the first time, to pass out of use, no person any longer being either thought of or spoken of under the notion of a Sabine or a Roman, a Romulian or a Tatian; and the new division became a source of general harmony and intermixture.

    It is the fortune of all good men that their virtue rises in glory after their deaths, and that the envy which evil men conceive against them never outlives them long; some have the happiness even to see it die before them.

    It was glorious to acquire a throne by justice, yet more glorious to prefer justice before a throne; the same virtue which made the one appear worthy of regal power exalted the other to the disregard of it.

    For the Romans treated their slaves with great humanity in these times, when, working and laboring themselves, and living together among them, they naturally were more gentle and familiar with them.

    It is irrational and poor-spirited not to seek conveniences for fear of losing them

    ...even virtue itself, than which there is no greater nor more desirable possession...

    The soul, having a principle of kindness in itself, and being born to love, as well as perceive, think, or remember, inclines and fixes upon some stranger, when a man has none of his own to embrace.

    We must not provide against the loss of wealth by poverty, or of friends by refusing all acquaintance, or of children by having none, but by morality and reason.

    Never to be able to control passion shows a weak nature and ill-breeding; and always to moderate it is very hard, and to some impossible.

    Laws must look to possibilities, if the maker designs to punish few in order to their amendment, and not many to no purpose.

    He allowed not all sorts of legacies, but only those which were not extorted by the frenzy of a disease, charms, imprisonment, force, or the persuasions of a wife; with good reason thinking that being seduced into wrong was as bad as being forced, and that between deceit and necessity, flattery and compulsion, there was little difference, since both may equally suspend the exercise of reason.

  • about Solon

    • it is irrational to punish the same crime sometimes very severely and without remorse, and sometimes very lightly, and, as it were, in sport, with a trivial fine

    as is usually the fate of great men, he could not escape the envy of others

  • about Appius Clausus

    • The remission of debts was peculiar to Solon; it was his great means for confirming the citizens' liberty; for a mere law to give all men equal rights is but useless, if the poor must sacrifice those rights to their debts, and, in the very seats and sanctuaries of equality, the courts of justice, the offices of state, and the public discussions, be more than anywhere at the beck and bidding of the rich.

  • about Solon

    • judgement is to be made of actions according to the times in which they were performed

    The conduct of a wise politician is ever suited to the present posture of affairs; often by foregoing a part he saves the whole, and by yielding in a small manner secures a greater

    the first step towards victory undoubtedly is to gain courage

    ...the common people, who, in any difficult crisis and great exigency, ever look for relief rather than to strange and extravagant than to reasonable means...

    in long sieges it commonly happens that parties on both sides meet often and converse with one another

    But moderation is best, and to avoid all extremes.

    This man, affecting the first place in the commonwealth, and not able by noble ways to outdo Camillus's reputation, took that ordinary course towards usurpation of absolute power, namely, to gain the multitude, those of them especially that were in debt; defending some by pleading their causes against their creditors, rescuing others by force, and not suffering the law to proceed against them; insomuch that in a short time he got great numbers of indigent people about him, whose tumults and uproars in the forum struck terror into the principal citizens.

  • about Marcus Furius Camillus, Marcus Manlius

    • Caesar once, seeing some wealthy strangers at Rome, carrying up and down with them in their arms and bosoms young puppy-dogs and monkeys, embracing and making much of them, took occasion not unnaturally to ask whether the women in their country were not used to bear children; by that prince-like reprimand gravely reflecting upon persons who spend and lavish upon brute beasts that affection and kindness which nature has implanted in us to be bestowed on those of our own kind.

  • about Julius Caesar

    • For it does not necessarily follow, that, if a piece of work please for its gracefulness, therefore he that wrought it deserves our admiration.

    virtue, by the bare statement of its actions, can so affect men's minds as to create at once both admiration of the things done and the desire to imitate the doers of them. The goods of fortune we would possess and would enjoy; those of virtue we long to practise and exercise; we are content to receive the former from others, the latter we wish others to experience from us. Moral good is a practical stimulus; it is no sooner seen, than it inspires an impulse to practise

    Friendly meetings are very quick to defeat any assumed superiority, and in intimate familiarity an exterior of gravity is hard to maintain. Real excellence, indeed, is most recognized when most openly looked into; and in really good men, nothing which meets the eyes of external observers so truly deserves their admiration, as their daily common life does that of their nearer friends.

    For ease and speed in doing a thing do not give the work lasting solidity or exactness of beauty; the expenditure of time allowed to a man's pains beforehand for the production of a thing is repaid by way of interest with a vital force for its preservation once produced.

    So very difficult a matter is it to trace and find out the truth of any thing 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.

    These things coming into my memory as I am writing this story, it would be unnatural for me to omit them.

    [The poets] call the place, indeed, where they say the gods make their abode, a secure and quiet seat, free from all hazards and commotions, untroubled with winds or with clouds, and equally through all time illumined with a soft serenity and a pure light, as though such were a home most agreeable for a blessed and immortal nature; and yet, in the mean while, affirm that the gods themselves are full of trouble and enmity and anger and other passions, which no way become or belong to even men that have any understanding.

    Their choice fell unanimously upon Fabius, whose character seemed equal to the greatness of the office; whose age was so far advanced as to give him experience, without taking from him the vigor of action; his body could execute what his soul designed; and his temper was a happy compound of confidence and cautiousness.

  • about Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus

    • Diogenes, who, being told that some persons derided him, made answer, "But I am not derided," meaning that only those were really insulted on whom such insults made an impression

  • about Diogenes

    • the worship most acceptable to the gods is that which comes from cheerful hearts

    it may be more easy to govern a city broken and tamed with calamities and adversity, and compelled by danger and necessity to listen to wisdom, than to set a bridle on wantonness and temerity, and rule a people pampered and restive with long prosperity

    it is the part of a good general, not only to provide for the present, but also to have a clear foresight of things to come

    to lose an advantage through diffidence is no less blamable in a general than to fall into danger for want of foresight

    When, afterwards, he was told that the assembly had pronounced judgement of death against him, all he said was "I will make them feel that I am alive."

  • about Alcibiades

    • ...[Marcius] Censorinus, who, having been twice chosen censor of the people, afterwards himself induced them to make a law that nobody should bear that office twice.

  • about ??? Marcius Censorinus

    • A generous and worthy nature without proper discipline, like a rich soil without culture, is apt, with its better fruits, to produce also much that is bad and faulty.

    Education and study, and the favors of the muses, confer no greater benefit on those that seek them, than these humanizing and civilizing lessons, which teach our natural qualities to submit to the limitations prescribed by reason, and to avoid the wildness of extremes.

    Going now to prosecute the victory, they besought Marcius, tired out with his toils, and faint and heavy through the loss of blood, that he would retire to the camp. He replied, however, that weariness was not for conquerors, and joined with them in the pursuit.

  • about Caius Marcius Coriolanus

    • one who so nobly could refuse reward, was beyond others worthy to receive it

  • about Caius Marcius Coriolanus

    • It is the higher accomplishment to use money well than to use arms; but not to need it is more noble than to use it.

    He was wholly possessed... with a profound and deep-seated fury, which passes with many for no pain at all.

  • about Caius Marcius Coriolanus

    • Pain, it is true, transmuted, so to say, by its own fiery heat into anger, loses every appearance of depression and feebleness; the angry man makes a show of energy, as the man in a high fever does of natural heat, while, in fact, all this action of the soul is but mere diseased palpitation, distention, and inflammation.

    The abundance of provision which he gained, and the waste and havoc of the country which he made, were, however, of themselves and in his account, the smallest results of that invasion; the great mischief he intended, and his special object in all, was to increase at Rome the suspicions entertained of the patricians, and to make them upon worse terms with the people.

  • about Caius Marcius Coriolanus

    • A man who ingratiates himself by indulgence and flattery, is hardly so censurable as one who, to avoid the appearance of flattering, insults.

    To seek power by servility to the people is a disgrace, but to maintain it by terror, violence, and oppression, is not a disgrace only, but an injustice.

    Simply to gratify anger, from which, as Ion says, no one ever yet got any return...

  • Plutarch, Ion of Chios

    • Pride, and self-will, the consort, as Plato calls it, of solitude, made him insufferable.

  • by Plutarch, Plato
  • about Caius Marcius Coriolanus

    • He who least likes courting favor, ought also least to think of resenting neglect: to feel wounded at being refused a distinction can only arise from an overweening appetite to have it.

  • about Caius Marcius Coriolanus

    • It was for the sake of others that I first commenced writing biographies; but I find myself proceeding and attaching myself to it for my own; the virtue of these great men serving me as a sort of looking-glass, in which I may see how to adjust and adorn my own life.

  • about Plutarch

    • ...the definition which some philosophers have given of religion, that it is the science of worshipping the gods.

    ...yet any such laxity was a very dangerous thing for a commonwealth to allow: because no man ever began the disturbance of his country's peace by a notorious breach of its laws; and those who are careless in trifles, give a precedent for remissness in important duties.

    those should think themselves truly blessed to whom fortune has given an equal share of good and evil

    that body is, without doubt, the most strong and healthful, which can the easiest support extreme cold and excessive heat in the change of seasons, and that the most firm and collected mind which is not puffed up with prosperity, nor dejected with adversity

    Cato Major, hearing some commend one that was rash, and inconsiderably daring in a battle, said, "There is a difference between a man's prizing valor at a great rate, and valuing life at little;" a very just remark.

  • Plutarch, Cato the Elder

    • An endeavor to avoid death is not blamable, if we do not basely desire to live; nor a willingness to die good and virtuous, if it proceeds from a contempt of life.

    That a man of common rank, dying in a strange country, neither his wife, children, nor kinsmen present, none either asking or compelling it, should be attended, buried, and crowned by so many cities that strove to exceed one another in the demonstrations of their live, seems to be the sum and completion of happy fortune.

  • about Pelopidas

    • Quotes (About)

    It was for the sake of others that I first commenced writing biographies; but I find myself proceeding and attaching myself to it for my own; the virtue of these great men serving me as a sort of looking-glass, in which I may see how to adjust and adorn my own life.

  • Plutarch