Moralia

"Xenophanes said, "I confess myself the greatest coward in the world, for I dare not do an ill thing.""

"One made the observation of the people of Asia that they were all slaves to one man, merely because they could not pronounce that syllable No."

"Euripides was wont to say, "Silence is an answer to a wise man.""

"Alexander wept when he heard from Anaxarchus that there was an infinite number of worlds; and his friends asking him if any accident had befallen him, he returns this answer: "Do you not think it a matter worthy of lamentation that when there is such a vast multitude of them, we have not yet conquered one?""

"Like the man who threw a stone at a bitch, but hit his step-mother, on which he exclaimed, "Not so bad!""

"Pittacus said, "Every one of you hath his particular plague, and my wife is mine; and he is very happy who hath this only"."

"He was a man, which, as Plato saith, is a very inconstant creature."

"The pilot cannot mitigate the billows or calm the winds."

"I, for my own part, had much rather people should say of me that there neither is nor ever was such a man as Plutarch, than that they should say, "Plutarch is an unsteady, fickle, froward, vindictive, and touchy fellow.""

"Remember what Simonides said,—that he never repented that he had held his tongue, but often that he had spoken."

"Custom is almost a second nature."

"Epaminondas is reported wittily to have said of a good man that died about the time of the battle of Leuctra, "How came he to have so much leisure as to die, when there was so much stirring?""

"Have in readiness this saying of Solon, "But we will not give up our virtue in exchange for their wealth.""

"Anacharsis said a man's felicity consists not in the outward and visible favours and blessings of Fortune, but in the inward and unseen perfections and riches of the mind."

"Said Periander, "Hesiod might as well have kept his breath to cool his pottage.""

"Socrates said, "Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live.""

"And Archimedes, as he was washing, thought of a manner of computing the proportion of gold in King Hiero's crown by seeing the water flowing over the bathing-stool. He leaped up as one possessed or inspired, crying, "I have found it! Eureka!""

"Said Scopas of Thessaly, "We rich men count our felicity and happiness to lie in these superfluities, and not in those necessary things.""

"That proverbial saying, "Ill news goes quick and far.""

"A traveller at Sparta, standing long upon one leg, said to a Lacedæmonian, "I do not believe you can do as much." "True," said he, "but every goose can.""

"Spintharus, speaking in commendation of Epaminondas, says he scarce ever met with any man who knew more and spoke less."

"It is a thing of no great difficulty to raise objections against another man's oration,—nay, it is a very easy matter; but to produce a better in its place is a work extremely troublesome."

"What is bigger than an elephant? But this also is become man's plaything, and a spectacle at public solemnities; and it learns to skip, dance, and kneel."

"No man ever wetted clay and then left it, as if there would be bricks by chance and fortune."

"Alexander was wont to say, "Were I not Alexander, I would be Diogenes.""

"Like watermen, who look astern while they row the boat ahead."

"Socrates said he was not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world."

"Anaximander says that men were first produced in fishes, and when they were grown up and able to help themselves were thrown up, and so lived upon the land."

"Athenodorus says hydrophobia, or water-dread, was first discovered in the time of Asclepiades."

"Let us not wonder if something happens which never was before, or if something doth not appear among us with which the ancients were acquainted."

"Why does pouring oil on the sea make it clear and calm? Is it for that the winds, slipping the smooth oil, have no force, nor cause any waves?"

"The great god Pan is dead."

"I am whatever was, or is, or will be; and my veil no mortal ever took up."

"When Hermodotus in his poems described Antigonus as the son of Helios, "My valet-de-chambre," said he, "is not aware of this.""

"There is no debt with so much prejudice put off as that of justice."

"It is a difficult thing for a man to resist the natural necessity of mortal passions."

"He is a fool who lets slip a bird in the hand for a bird in the bush."

"When Demosthenes was asked what was the first part of oratory, he answered, "Action;" and which was the second, he replied, "Action;" and which was the third, he still answered, "Action.""

"Xenophon says that there is no sound more pleasing than one's own praises."

"Lampis, the sea commander, being asked how he got his wealth, answered, "My greatest estate I gained easily enough, but the smaller slowly and with much labour.""

"The general himself ought to be such a one as can at the same time see both forward and backward."

"Statesmen are not only liable to give an account of what they say or do in public, but there is a busy inquiry made into their very meals, beds, marriages, and every other sportive or serious action."

"Leo Byzantius said, "What would you do, if you saw my wife, who scarce reaches up to my knees?… Yet," went he on, "as little as we are, when we fall out with each other, the city of Byzantium is not big enough to hold us.""

"Cato said, "I had rather men should ask why my statue is not set up, than why it is.""

"It was the saying of Bion, that though the boys throw stones at frogs in sport, yet the frogs do not die in sport but in earnest."

"Both Empedocles and Heraclitus held it for a truth that man could not be altogether cleared from injustice in dealing with beasts as he now does."

"Simonides calls painting silent poetry, and poetry speaking painting."

"As Meander says, "For our mind is God;" and as Heraclitus, "Man's genius is a deity.""

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

"He that first started that doctrine, that knavery is the best defence against a knave, was but an ill teacher, advising us to commit wickedness to secure ourselves."