Plutarch's Lives Quotes

“When someone blamed Hecataeus the sophist because that, being invited to the public table, he had not spoken one word all supper-time, Archidamidas answered in his vindication 'He who knows how to speak, knows also when'.”
― Plutarch, Plutarch's Lives: Volume I

“[Theseus] soon found himself involved in factions and troubles; those who long had hated him had now added to their hatred contempt; and the minds of the people were so generally corrupted, that, instead of obeying commands with silence, they expected to be flattered into their duty.”
― Plutarch, Plutarch's Lives: Volume I

“It was natural for [Spartan women] to think and speak as Gorgo, the wife of Leonidas, is said to have done, when some foreign lady, as it would seem, told her that the women of Lacedaemon were the only women of the world who could rule men; 'With good reason,' she said, 'for we are the only women who bring forth men'.”
― Plutarch, Plutarch's Lives: Volume I

“[The Spartans] ordered the maidens to exercise themselves with wrestling, running, throwing the quoit, and casting the dart, to the end that the fruit they conceived might, in strong and healthy bodies, take firmer root and find better growth, and withal that they, with this greater vigour, might be the more able to undergo the pains of childbearing.”
― Plutarch, Plutarch's Lives: Volume I

“These things sensibly affected Theseus, who, thinking it but just not to disregard, but rather partake of, the sufferings of his fellow citizens, offered himself for one without any lot. All else were struck with admiration for the nobleness and with love for the goodness of the act.”
― Plutarch, Plutarch's Lives: Volume I

“Lycurgus was of opinion that ornaments were so far from advantaging them in their counsels, that they were rather an hindrance, by diverting their attention from the business before them to statues and pictures, and roofs curiously fretted, the usual embellishments of such places amongst the other Greeks.”
― Plutarch, Plutarch's Lives: Volume I

“Demaratus, being asked in a troublesome manner by an importunate fellow, Who was the best man in Lacedaemon? answered at last, 'He, Sir, that is the least like you'.”
― Plutarch, Plutarch's Lives: Volume I

“Being consulted again whether it were requisite to enclose the city with a wall, [Lycurgus] sent them word, 'The city is well fortified which hath a wall of men instead of brick'.”
― Plutarch, Plutarch's Lives: Volume I

“Nor had the cities of Sicily any trust in him, as they were in great distress, and greatly exasperated against those who pretended to lead armies to their succour, on account of the treachery of Kallippus and Pharax; who, one an Athenian and the other a Lacedaemonian, but both giving out that they were come to fight for freedom and to put down despotism, did so tyrannise themselves, that the reign of the despots in Sicily seemed to have been a golden age, and those who died in slavery were thought more happy than those who lived to see liberty.”
― Plutarch, Plutarch's Lives, Volume I

“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.”
― Plutarch, Plutarch's Lives: Volume I

“So they cut their hair short in front, that their enemies might not grasp it. And they say that Alexander of Macedon for the same reason ordered his generals to have the beards of the Macedonians shaved, because they were a convenient handle for the enemy to grasp.”
― Plutarch, Plutarch's Lives, Volume I

“[The Spartans] 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.”
― Plutarch, Plutarch's Lives: Volume I

“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.”
― Plutarch, Plutarch's Lives: Volume I

“They should live all together on an equal footing; merit to be their only road to eminence, and the disgrace of evil, and credit of worthy acts, their one measure of difference between man and man.”
― Plutarch, Plutarch's Lives: Volume I

“For kings indeed we have, who wear the marks and assume the titles of royalty, but as for the qualities of their minds, they have nothing by which they are to be distinguished from their subjects.”
― Plutarch, Plutarch's Lives Volume 1

“But being overborne with numbers, and nobody daring to face about, stretching out his hands to heaven, [Romulus] prayed to Jupiter to stop the army, and not to neglect but maintain the Roman cause, now in extreme danger. The prayer was no sooner made, than shame and respect for their king checked many; the fears of the fugitives changed suddenly into confidence.”
― Plutarch, Plutarch's Lives: Volume I

“Menestheus, the son of Peteus, grandson of Orneus, and the great-grandson to Erechtheus, the first man that is recorded to have affected popularity and ingratiated himself with the multitude, stirred up and exasperated the most eminent men of the city, who had long borne a secret grudge to Theseus, conceiving that he had robbed them of their several little kingdoms and lordships, and, having pent them all up in one city, was using them as his subjects and slaves. He put also the meaner people into commotion, telling them, that, deluded with a mere dream of liberty, though indeed they were deprived both of that and of their proper homes and religious usages, instead of many good and gracious kings of their own, they had given themselves up to be lorded over by a new-comer and a stranger.”
― Plutarch, Plutarch's Lives: Volume I

“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, Lives 1

“It continues also a custom at this very day for the bride not of herself to pass her husband’s threshold, but to be lifted over, in memory that the Sabine virgins were carried in by violence, and did not go in of their own will.”
― Plutarch, Lives 1

“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.”
― Plutarch, Lives 1

“The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their place, insomuch that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same.”
― Plutarch, Lives 1

“This may show us how dangerous it is to incur the hostility of a city that is mistress of eloquence and song.”
― Plutarch, Lives 1

“The very points of my character that are most commended mark me as unfit to reign: love of retirement and of studies inconsistent with business, a passion that has become inveterate in me for peace, for unwarlike occupations, and for the society of men whose meetings are but those of worship and of kindly intercourse, whose lives in general are spent upon their farms and their pastures.”
― Plutarch, Plutarch's Lives: Volume I

“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; but in Numa's case, also, the fortunes of the succeeding kings served as foils to set off the brightness of his reputation.”
― Plutarch, Plutarch's Lives: Volume I

“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.”
― Plutarch, Plutarch's Lives: Volume I

“Their [Lacadaemonian] women, it is said, were bold and masculine, overbearing to their husbands in the first place, absolute mistresses in their houses, giving their opinions about public matters freely, and speaking openly even on the most important subjects.”
― Plutarch, Plutarch's Lives: Volume I

“That best and justest fabric of things was of no long continuance, because it wanted that cement which should have kept all together, education.”
― Plutarch, Plutarch's Lives: Volume I

“We ought indeed to shrink from and feel shame at what is base; but the nature which is over-cautious to avoid blame may be gentle and kindly, but cannot be great.”
― Plutarch, Plutarch's Lives, Volume I

“As he spoke, he opened his clothes, and showed his breast with an incredible number of scars upon it; then turning to Galba, who had made some remarks not very decent "You laugh," said he, "at these other marks: but I glory in them before my countrymen, for I got them by riding, night and day, in their service. But come, bring them to vote; I will go amongst them and follow them all to the poll, that I may know those who are cowardly and ungrateful, and like rather to be ruled by a demagogue than by a true general.”
― Plutarch, Plutarch's Lives, Volume I

“Under him everything was done with both zeal and skill. He neglected all other duties, when engaged upon these, neither omitting any part nor adding any, arguing with his companions, when they blamed him for his care about trifles, that though a man might think that heaven was merciful and forgiving of negligences, yet that habitual disregard and overlooking of such points was dangerous for the state, seeing that no one ever begins till some flagrant breach of the law to disturb the constitution, but those who are careless of accuracy in small things soon begin to neglect the most important.”
― Plutarch, Plutarch's Lives, Volume I