Moralia

The Moralia (Latin for "Morals", "Customs" or "Mores"; Greek: Ἠθικά, Ethiká) is a group of manuscripts written in Ancient Greek dating from the 10th–13th centuries but traditionally ascribed to the 1st-century scholar Plutarch of Chaeronea. The eclectic collection contains 78 essays and transcribed speeches. They provide insights into Roman and Greek life, but they also include timeless observations which have influenced many generations of Europeans writers.

Quotes

Xenophanes said, "I confess myself the greatest coward in the world, for I dare not do an ill thing."
- Of Bashfulness (Tr. Goodwin)

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.
- Of Bashfulness

Euripides was wont to say, "Silence is an answer to a wise man."
- Of Bashfulness (Tr. Goodwin)

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?"
- On the Tranquillity of the Mind (Tr. Goodwin)

Like the man who threw a stone at a bitch, but hit his step-mother, on which he exclaimed, "Not so bad!"
- On the Tranquillity of the Mind (Tr. Goodwin)

Pittacus said, "Every one of you hath his particular plague, and my wife is mine; and he is very happy who hath this only".
- On the Tranquillity of the Mind (Tr. Goodwin)

He was a man, which, as Plato saith, is a very inconstant creature.
- On the Tranquillity of the Mind (Tr. Goodwin)

The pilot cannot mitigate the billows or calm the winds.
- On the Tranquillity of the Mind (Tr. Goodwin)

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."
- Of Superstition (Tr. Goodwin)

Remember what Simonides said,—that he never repented that he had held his tongue, but often that he had spoken.
- Rules for the Preservation of Health, 7 (Tr. Goodwin)

Custom is almost a second nature.
- Rules for the Preservation of Health, 18 (Tr. Goodwin)

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?"
- Rules for the Preservation of Health, 25 (Tr. Goodwin)

Have in readiness this saying of Solon, "But we will not give up our virtue in exchange for their wealth."
- How to profit by our Enemies (Tr. Goodwin)

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.
- The Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, 11 (Tr. Goodwin)

Said Periander, "Hesiod might as well have kept his breath to cool his pottage."
- The Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, 14 (Tr. Goodwin)

Socrates said, "Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live."
- How a Young Man ought to hear Poems, 4 (Tr. Goodwin)

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!"
- Pleasure not attainable according to Epicurus, 11 (Tr. Goodwin)

Said Scopas of Thessaly, "We rich men count our felicity and happiness to lie in these superfluities, and not in those necessary things."
- Of the Love of Wealth (Tr. Goodwin)

That proverbial saying, "Ill news goes quick and far."
- Of Inquisitiveness (Tr. Goodwin)

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."
- Remarkable Speeches (Tr. Goodwin)

Spintharus, speaking in commendation of Epaminondas, says he scarce ever met with any man who knew more and spoke less.
- Of Hearing, 6 (Tr. Goodwin)

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.
- Of Hearing, 6 (Tr. Goodwin)

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.
- Of Fortune (Tr. Goodwin)

No man ever wetted clay and then left it, as if there would be bricks by chance and fortune.
- Of Fortune (Tr. Goodwin)

Alexander was wont to say, "Were I not Alexander, I would be Diogenes."
- Of the Fortune or Virtue of Alexander the Great (Tr. Goodwin)

Like watermen, who look astern while they row the boat ahead.
- Whether 'twere rightly said, Live Concealed (Tr. Goodwin)

Socrates said he was not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.
- Of Banishment (Tr. Goodwin)

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.
- Symposiacs, book viii, question viii (Tr. Goodwin)

Athenodorus says hydrophobia, or water-dread, was first discovered in the time of Asclepiades.
- Symposiacs, book viii, question 9 (Tr. Goodwin)

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.
- Symposiacs, book viii, question 9 (Tr. Goodwin)

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?
- Symposiacs, book viii, question 9 (Tr. Goodwin)

The great god Pan is dead.
- Why the Oracles cease to give Answers (Tr. Goodwin)

I am whatever was, or is, or will be; and my veil no mortal ever took up.
- Of Isis and Osiris (Tr. Goodwin)

When Hermodotus in his poems described Antigonus as the son of Helios, "My valet-de-chambre," said he, "is not aware of this."
- Of Isis and Osiris (Tr. Goodwin)

There is no debt with so much prejudice put off as that of justice.
- Of those whom God is slow to punish (Tr. Goodwin)

It is a difficult thing for a man to resist the natural necessity of mortal passions.
- Of those whom God is slow to punish (Tr. Goodwin)

He is a fool who lets slip a bird in the hand for a bird in the bush.
- Of Garrulity (Tr. Goodwin)

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."
- Lives of the Ten Orators (Tr. Goodwin)

Xenophon says that there is no sound more pleasing than one's own praises.
- Whether an Aged Man ought to meddle in State Affairs (Tr. Goodwin)

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."
- Whether an Aged Man ought to meddle in State Affairs (Tr. Goodwin)

The general himself ought to be such a one as can at the same time see both forward and backward.
- Whether an Aged Man ought to meddle in State Affairs (Tr. Goodwin)

Xenophon says that there is no sound more pleasing than one's own praises.
- Whether an Aged Man ought to meddle in State Affairs (Tr. Goodwin)

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."
- Whether an Aged Man ought to meddle in State Affairs (Tr. Goodwin)

The general himself ought to be such a one as can at the same time see both forward and backward.
- Whether an Aged Man ought to meddle in State Affairs (Tr. Goodwin)

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.
- Political Precepts (Tr. Goodwin)

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."
- Political Precepts (Tr. Goodwin)

Cato said, "I had rather men should ask why my statue is not set up, than why it is."
- Political Precepts (Tr. Goodwin)

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.
- Symposiacs, book viii, question viii (Tr. Goodwin)

Athenodorus says hydrophobia, or water-dread, was first discovered in the time of Asclepiades.
- Symposiacs, book viii, question 9 (Tr. Goodwin)

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.
- Symposiacs, book viii, question 9 (Tr. Goodwin)

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?
- Symposiacs, book viii, question 9 (Tr. Goodwin)

The great god Pan is dead.
- Why the Oracles cease to give Answers (Tr. Goodwin)

I am whatever was, or is, or will be; and my veil no mortal ever took up.
- Of Isis and Osiris (Tr. Goodwin)

When Hermodotus in his poems described Antigonus as the son of Helios, "My valet-de-chambre," said he, "is not aware of this."
- Of Isis and Osiris (Tr. Goodwin)

There is no debt with so much prejudice put off as that of justice.
- Of those whom God is slow to punish (Tr. Goodwin)

It is a difficult thing for a man to resist the natural necessity of mortal passions.
- Of those whom God is slow to punish (Tr. Goodwin)

He is a fool who lets slip a bird in the hand for a bird in the bush.
- Of Garrulity (Tr. Goodwin)

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."
- Lives of the Ten Orators (Tr. Goodwin)

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.
- Political Precepts (Tr. Goodwin)

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."
- Political Precepts (Tr. Goodwin)

Cato said, "I had rather men should ask why my statue is not set up, than why it is."
- Political Precepts (Tr. Goodwin)

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.
- Which are the most crafty, Water or Land Animals?, 7 (Tr. Goodwin)

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.
- Which are the most crafty, Water or Land Animals?, 7 (Tr. Goodwin)

Simonides calls painting silent poetry, and poetry speaking painting.
- Whether the Athenians were more Warlike or Learned, 3 (Tr. Goodwin)

As Meander says, "For our mind is God;" and as Heraclitus, "Man's genius is a deity."
- Platonic Questions, i (Tr. Goodwin)

Pythagoras, when he was asked what time was, answered that it was the soul of this world.
- Platonic Questions, viii, 4 (Tr. Goodwin)

Socrates... said he was not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.
- Of Banishment (Tr. Goodwin)

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.
- Of Bashfulness (Tr. Goodwin); on Zeno

Nήπιος, ὃς τὰ ἕτοιμα λιπὼν ἀνέτοιμα διώκει.
- He is a fool who leaves things close at hand
  To follow what is out of reach.
- Of Garrulity (Tr. Babbitt)
- Hesiod, Frag. 219 (Frag. 18, p. 278, ed. Evelyn-White in LCL)

Τοῖς ἐγρηγορόσιν ἕνα καὶ κοινὸν κόσμον εἶναι, τῶν δὲ κοιμωμένων ἕκαστον εἰς ἴδιον ἀποστρέφεσθαι.
- 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.
- Of Superstition (Tr. Addison)

When the candles are out, all women are alike.
- Conjugal Precepts (Tr. Goodwin)

To err in opinion, though it be not the part of wise men, is at least human.
- Against Colotes (Tr. Goodwin)

Οὐ γὰρ ὡς ἀγγεῖον ὁ νοῦς ἀποπληρώσεως ἀλλ' ὑπεκκαύματος μόνον ὥσπερ ὕλη δεῖται ὁρμὴν ἐμποιοῦντος εὑρετικὴν καὶ ὄρεξιν ἐπὶ τὴν ἀλήθειαν. ὥσπερ οὖν εἴ τις ἐκ γειτόνων πυρὸς δεόμενος, εἶτα πολὺ καὶ λαμπρὸν εὑρὼν αὐτοῦ καταμένοι διὰ τέλους θαλπόμενος, οὕτως εἴ τις ἥκων λόγου μεταλαβεῖν πρὸς ἄλλον οὐχ οἴεται δεῖν φῶς οἰκεῖον ἐξάπτειν καὶ νοῦν ἴδιον, ἀλλὰ χαίρων τῇ ἀκροάσει κάθηται θελγόμενος, οἷον ἔρευθος ἕλκει καὶ γάνωμα τὴν δόξαν ἀπὸ τῶν λόγων, τὸν δ᾽ ἐντὸς: εὐρῶτα τῆς ψυχῆς καὶ ζόφον οὐκ ἐκτεθέρμαγκεν οὐδ᾽ ἐξέωκε διὰ φιλοσοφίας.
- The correct analogy for the mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting — no more — and then it motivates one towards originality and instills the desire for truth. Suppose someone were to go and ask his neighbors for fire and find a substantial blaze there, and just stay there continually warming himself: that is no different from someone who goes to someone else to get to some of his rationality, and fails to realize that he ought to ignite his own flame, his own intellect, but is happy to sit entranced by the lecture, and the words trigger only associative thinking and bring, as it were, only a flush to his cheeks and a glow to his limbs; but he has not dispelled or dispersed, in the warm light of philosophy, the internal dank gloom of his mind.
- On Listening to Lectures (48c, variously called De auditione Philosophorum, De Auditu or De Recta Audiendi Ratione) (Tr. Waterfield)

By these criteria let Alexander also be judged! For from his words, from his deeds, and from the instruction' which he imparted, it will be seen that he was indeed a philosopher.
- On the Fortune Of Alexander, I, 4, 328b (Tr. Babbitt)

Alexander established more than seventy cities among savage tribes, and sowed all Asia with Greek magistracies.
- On the Fortune of Alexander, I, 328d, 329a (Tr. Babbitt)

If it were not my purpose to combine foreign things with things Greek, to traverse and civilize every continent, to search out the uttermost parts of land and sea, to push the bounds of Macedonia to the farthest Ocean, and to disseminate and shower the blessings of Greek justice and peace over every nation, I should not content to sit quietly in the luxury of idle power, but I should emulate the frugality of Diogenes. But as things are, forgive me Diogenes, that I imitate Heracles, and emulate Perseus, and follow in the footsteps of Dionysus, the divine author and progenitor of my family, and desire that victorious Greeks should dance again in India and revive the memory of the Bacchic revels among the savage mountain tribes beyond the Caucasus.
- On the Fortune of Alexander, I, 332a (Tr. Babbitt)

What spectator... would not exclaim... that through Fortune the foreign host was prevailing beyond its deserts, but through Virtue the Hellenes were holding out beyond their ability? And if the enemy gains the upper hand, this will be the work of Fortune or of some jealous deity or of divine retribution; but if the the Greeks prevail, it will be Virtue and daring, friendship and fidelity, that will win the guerdon of victory?
- On the Fortune of Alexander, II, 344e–f (Tr. Babbitt)

That remiss and slow-paced justice (as Euripides describes it) that falls upon the wicked by accident, by reason of its uncertainty, ill-timed delay, and disorderly motion, seems rather to resemble chance than providence. So that I cannot conceive what benefit there is in these millstones of the Gods which are said to grind so late, as thereby celestial punishment is obscured, and the awe of evil doing rendered vain and despicable.
- On the Delays of the Divine Vengeance, III, 549d (Tr. Goodwin)

Of the Training of Children

Περὶ παίδων ἀγωγῆς, De liberis educandis

It is a desirable thing to be well descended; but the glory belongs to our ancestors.
- 8 (Tr. Goodwin)

Ἡ ἀνάπαυσις τῶν πόνων ἐστὶν ἄρτυμα.
- Rest gives relish to labour.
- 9 (Tr. Babbitt)

It is a true proverb, that if you live with a lame man, you will learn to halt.
- 13 (Tr. Goodwin)

The very spring and root of honesty and virtue lie in good education.
- ? (Tr. Goodwin)

It is wise to be silent when occasion requires, and better than to speak, though never so well.
- ? (Tr. Goodwin)

For water continually dropping will wear hard rocks hollow.
- ? (Tr. Goodwin)

The very spring and root of honesty and virtue lie in the felicity of lighting on good education.
- ? (Tr. Goodwin)

According to the proverb, the best things are the most difficult.
- ? (Tr. Goodwin)

To sing the same tune, as the saying is, is in everything cloying and offensive; but men are generally pleased with variety.
- ? (Tr. Goodwin)

Children are to be won to follow liberal studies by exhortations and rational motives, and on no account to be forced thereto by whipping.
- ? (Tr. Goodwin)

Nothing made the horse so fat as the king's eye.
- ? (Tr. Goodwin)

Democritus said, words are but the shadows of actions.
- ? (Tr. Goodwin)

'Tis a wise saying, Drive on your own track.
- ? (Tr. Goodwin)

Eat not thy heart; which forbids to afflict our souls, and waste them with vexatious cares.
- ? (Tr. Goodwin)

Abstain from beans; that is, keep out of public offices, for anciently the choice of the officers of state was made by beans.
- ? (Tr. Goodwin)

When men are arrived at the goal, they should not turn back.
- ? (Tr. Goodwin)

The whole life of man is but a point of time; let us enjoy it, therefore, while it lasts, and not spend it to no purpose.
- ? (Tr. Goodwin)

An old doting fool, with one foot already in the grave.
- ? (Tr. Goodwin)

Of Man's Progress in Virtue

They relate of Diogenes of Sinope, when he began to be a philosopher, that the Athenians were celebrating a festival, and there were public banquets and shows and mutual festivities, and drinking and revelling all night, and he, coiled up in a corner of the market-place intending to sleep, fell into a train of thought likely seriously to turn him from his purpose and shake his resolution, for he reflected that he had adopted without any necessity a toilsome and unusual kind of life, and by his own fault sat there debarred of all the good things. At that moment, however, they say a mouse stole up and began to munch some of the crumbs of his barley-cake, and he plucked up his courage and said to himself, in a railing and chiding fashion, "What say you, Diogenes? Do your leavings give this mouse a sumptuous meal, while you, the gentleman, wail and lament because you are not getting drunk yonder and reclining on soft and luxurious couches?" Whenever such depressions of mind are not frequent, and the mind when they take place quickly recovers from them, after having put them to flight as it were, and when such annoyance and distraction is easily got rid of, then one may consider one's progress in virtue as a certainty.
- 5 (Tr. Shilleto)

Whenever we begin so much to love good men that we deem happy, "not only," as Plato says, "the temperate man himself, but also the man who hears the words that flow from his wise lips," and even admire and are pleased with his figure and walk and look and smile, and desire to adapt ourselves to his model and to stick closely to him, then may we think that we are making genuine progress. Still more will this be the case, if we admire the good not only in prosperity, but like lovers who admire even the lispings and paleness of those in their flower, as the tears and dejection of Panthea in her grief and affliction won the affections of Araspes, so we fear neither the exile of Aristides, nor the prison of Anaxagoras, nor the poverty of Socrates, nor the condemnation of Phocion, but think virtue worthy our love even under such trials, and join her, ever chanting that line of Euripides, "Unto the noble everything is good."
- 15 (Tr. Shilleto)

For the enthusiasm that can go so far as not to be discouraged at the sure prospect of trouble, but admires and emulates what is good even so, could never be turned away from what is noble by anybody. Such men ever, whether they have some business to transact, or have taken upon them some office, or are in some critical conjuncture, put before their eyes the example of noble men, and consider what Plato would have done on the occasion, what Epaminondas would have said, how Lycurgus or Agesilaus would have dealt; that so, adjusting and re-modelling themselves, as it were, at their mirrors, they may correct any ignoble expression, and repress any ignoble passion.
- 15 (Tr. Shilleto)

As those persons who despair of ever being rich make little account of small expenses, thinking that little added to a little will never make any great sum.
- ? (Tr. Goodwin)

Antiphanes said merrily that in a certain city the cold was so intense that words were congealed as soon as spoken, but that after some time they thawed and became audible; so that the words spoken in winter articulated next summer.
- ? (Tr. Goodwin)

Of Eating of Flesh

We are more sensible of what is done against custom than against Nature.
- I, ? (Tr. Goodwin)

You ask of me then for what reason it was that Pythagoras abstained from eating of flesh. I for my part do much admire in what humor, with what soul or reason, the first man with his mouth touched slaughter, and reached to his lips the flesh of a dead animal, and having set before people courses of ghastly corpses and ghosts, could give those parts the names of meat and victuals, that but a little before lowed, cried, moved, and saw; how his sight could endure the blood of slaughtered, flayed, and mangled bodies; how his smell could bear their scent; and how the very nastiness happened not to offend the taste, while it chewed the sores of others, and participated of the saps and juices of deadly wounds.
- I, 1 (Tr. Goodwin)

Are you not ashamed to mix tame fruits with blood and slaughter? You are indeed wont to call serpents, leopards, and lions savage creatures; but yet yourselves are defiled with blood, and come nothing behind them in cruelty. What they kill is their ordinary nourishment, but what you kill is your better fare.
- I, 2 (Tr. Goodwin)

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. And then we fancy that the voices it utters and screams forth to us are nothing else but certain inarticulate sounds and noises, and not the several deprecations, entreaties, and pleadings of each of them.
- I, 4 (Tr. Goodwin)

What meal is not expensive? That for which no animal is put to death. … one participating of feeling, of seeing, of hearing, of imagination, and of intellection; which each animal hath received from Nature for the acquiring of what is agreeable to it, and the avoiding what is disagreeable.
- II, 3 (Tr. Goodwin)

In the beginning, some wild and mischievous beast was killed and eaten, and then some little bird or fish was entrapped. And the love of slaughter, being first experimented and exercised in these, at last passed even to the laboring ox, and the sheep that clothes us, and to the poor cock that keeps the house; until by little and little, unsatiableness being strengthened by use, men came to the slaughter of men, to bloodshed and wars.
- II, 4 (Tr. Goodwin); cp. Montaigne, II, 11, Of Cruelty