Plutarch Quotes

Friendship without self-interest is one of the rare and beautiful things of life.

My best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.

To want friendship is a great fault. Friendship ought to be a gratuitous joy, like the joys afforded by art or life.

The best friend is he that, when he wishes a person's good, wishes it for that person's own sake.

I will give my life to whoever in need, to any dear friend of mine.

To feel much for others and little for ourselves; to restrain our selfishness and exercise our benevolent affections, constitute the perfection of human nature.

If we would build on a sure foundation in friendship, we must love friends for their sake rather than for our own.

That good disposition which boasts of being most tender is often stifled by the least urging of self-interest.

I love the game. I love everything that it can do for people. It's not all about me.

My personal philosophy is that people should be extremely selfish for the first half of their life and extremely unselfish for the second half because then they can do the most good.

The great natures which are good, are above everything generous and don't begrudge the giving of themselves.

If you want to make friends, go out of your way to do things for other people--things that require time, energy, unselfishness, and thoughtfulness.

When I die, I should be ashamed to leave enough to build me a monument if there were a wanting friend above ground. I would enjoy the pleasure of what I give by giving it alive and seeing another enjoy it.

The service a man renders his friend is trivial and selfish, compared with the service he knows his friend stood in readiness to yield him, alike before he had begun to serve his friend, and now also. Compared with that good-will I bear my friend, the benefit it is in my power to render him seems small.

There is nothing so great that I fear to do it for my friend; nothing so small that I will disdain to do it for him.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere, Heaven did a recompense as largely send: He gave to mis'ry (all he had) a tear, He gained from Heav'n ('t was all he wish'd) a friend.

The theory that everyone acts from self-interest, direct or indirect, is psychologically unsound. . . . Throughout history . . . there have been millions of men and women with some sort of Humanist philosophy who have consciously given up their lives for a social ideal.

Service is selflessness--the opposite of the lifestyle that we see so much of in America today. The things that entertain us don't often lift us up, or show us as the people we can rise up to become. The people who appear in this book--and others who did things I can't talk about--are my role models. They quietly live out the idea expressed in the Bible (John 15:13): "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

We love everything on our own account; we even follow our own taste and inclination when we prefer our friends to ourselves; and yet it is this preference alone that constitutes true and perfect friendship.

Genuine human friendship is on the basis of human affection, irrespective of your position. Therefore, the more you show concern about the welfare and rights of others, the more you are a genuine friend. The more you remain open and sincere, then ultimately more benefits will come to you. If you forget or do not bother about others, then eventually you will lose your own benefit.

...a good friend stands in harm's way for you the second you ask--but a great friend does it without being asked at all.

I can never think of promoting my convenience at the expense of a friend's interest and inclination.

Love is something you do for someone else, not something you do for yourself.

It's not about you. It's about them.

Any woman who does not live for unselfish service is a useless cumberer of the earth.